Maine's Prescription Monitoring Program

According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, Maine has a relatively high rate of non-medical use of prescription pain relievers during the past year among 18-25 year olds, when compared to other states.

(Full report available at http://oas.samhsa.gov/states.cfm)

Maine' Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) is a tool created to prevent and detect prescription drug misuse and diversion. PMP maintains a database of all transactions for controlled substances dispensed in the State of Maine. This database is available online to prescribers and dispensers. A free service of the Office of Substance Abuse (OSA) in the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, the PMP database is quickly becoming a standard tool for clinicians to provide better care to their patients throughout the state. Anyone with a DEA number is encouraged to register to request patient reports. These patient reports, and the automatically sent threshold reports, enhance the ability of health care providers to coordinate care. The database is searchable online, so it is available anywhere one has Internet access. Clinicians can use the program to check the history of a new patient and to monitor on-going treatment. PMP is another tool clinicians can add to their toolkit for preventing and intervening against misuse and diversion of prescription drugs.

How it works

The state legislature passed a law in 2003 that requires information about all transactions for Schedule II, III, and IV controlled substances dispensed in Maine to be reported to the state government. Pharmacies – both in and out of the state – submit data twice per month. The data is then cleaned and added to a relational database. Using patients’ names and birth dates, registered users of the database can log on to the web site at www.maine.gov/pmp to look up their patients online. Clinicians have immediate access to a patient’s history with controlled substances freely available at their fingertips. (To register to become a requestor or submitter of data, go to www.maine.gov/pmp and follow the instructions there.)

Registration Scoreboard

Although data about all prescribing and dispensing is in the database, prescribers and dispensers who want access to the data must register as data requesters. Here is a "scoreboard" showing the number and percent of different types of clinicians registered as data requesters on the portal:

	Registered	Percent
Dentists	61	9%
Medical Doctors	698	47%
Nurse Prescriber	337	30%
Osteopathic Doctors	195	50%
Physician Assistants	179	25%
Podiatrists	8	9%
Total Prescribers	1468	33%
Pharmacists (ME)	180	16%

Last update of total eligible counts
Prescribers	(Sum)
Medical Doctors	March-09
Osteopathic Doctors	March-09
Nurse Practitioners	Sept-09
Physician Assistants	March-09
Dentists	Sept-09
Podiatrists	Sept-09
Pharmacists	Sept-09

Here is a bar chart displaying the above "scores" graphically:

bar chart of registration data in table above

(Last updated November 4, 2009)

Patient Threshold Reports

Reports are automatically sent to prescribers when threshold numbers of prescribers and pharmacies have been reached or exceeded by a patient during a given quarter.

OSA encourages prescribers to review Patient Threshold Reports to confirm whether or not they wrote the prescriptions shown on the reports. If the report is accurate, prescribers are advised to discuss their concerns with the patient. If one or more records on a report appear to be inaccurate, prescribers are asked to contact the pharmacy listed to get the record in error corrected. Prescribers may also want to keep a copy of the threshold report in the patient’s record or chart.

OSA’s goal is to get patients the treatment they need if they have drug-related problems. Clinicians are asked to assist the patient in finding substance abuse treatment in their area.

Benefits to the Clinicians:
1. Accurate background information on a new patient can be obtained.
2. Current patients can be monitored.
3. Threshold reports provide warnings on patients who may be misusing or diverting prescription drugs and can assist prescribers in coordination of care.

More information about substance abuse treatment services and support groups is available elsewhere on this web site (Find Help).

Addressing Possible Concerns

Confidentiality
Patient confidentiality is carefully protected. Direct access to the database is limited to registered users.

The “Chilling Effect”
Some people may be concerned that prescribers will be less likely to provide pain medications to those that need them, but programs like this one have actually been shown to have the opposite effect, increasing access to narcotics for people with legitimate pain. OSA only gives reports to criminal justice authorities if there is a subpoena from the Attorney General. This program is intended for prevention and intervention for people affected by illicit use of prescription drugs.

Data Accuracy
OSA encourages dispenser pharmacies to be thorough in their record keeping because the reports will only be as good as the data received. Most important, pharmacists should carefully record prescriber DEA numbers when filling prescriptions for controlled substances.
All records are inspected before they enter the database.
Data that needs to be edited is sent back.

More information

Please feel free to explore the links below and on the left and right sides of this page, call the Office of Substance Abuse at 287-2595, or email osa.ircosa@maine.gov.

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