Health Department Receives $7,000 Grant For Prescription Drug Monitoring Program

Crawford County will soon be implementing a prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) after being the recipient of a $7,000 grant.

The grant, said Honor Evans of the Crawford County Health Department, was awarded by the Crawford County Foundation. 

A PDMP creates a database of certain drug prescriptions to ensure patients are not “doctor shopping.” This way, they cannot visit multiple doctors to receive multiple prescriptions. 

Creating a PDMP is the latest step the county is taking towards the opioid issue after agreeing in March to a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies pushing them. 

Jack Garvey, a former circuit judge in St. Louis and an attorney at Carey, Danis & Lowe, urged commissioners to join the lawsuit, which is enlisting counties across the state. 

County Clerk John Martin said Tuesday that filings have begun. If the lawsuit is successful, any monetary award would go towards helping the county pay for the costs of opioid addiction, including the PDMP.

Missouri was the only state in the country without a PDMP until Gov. Eric Greitens signed an executive order creating one last year, sidestepping the Missouri legislature.

St. Louis County created a PDMP in May 2017 that invited other counties across the state to join. According to St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, 79 percent of the state’s population is covered by the PDMP.

The statewide PDMP created by Greitens contracts Express Scripts to provide monthly data reports to the Department of Health and Senior Services. The state receives the prescriber’s name, pharmacy name, drug name and strength, days’ supply, the date the drug was dispensed, pharmacy information and how many refills are available.