As you may know, Colorado law requires that all prescribers have and maintain an active Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) account as a condition of licensure and, further, that they check the PDMP prior to issuing any prescriptions for either opioid or benzodiazepine medications for their patients. Last year, the Office of the State Auditor determined that "PDMP checking rates are much lower than expected or desired" and asked that "DORA (the Boards of Medicine and Pharmacy) increase enforcement of PDMP checking requirements under Colorado law."
As we all know, PDMP checking takes time, and is not conducive to clinical work flow. The state of Colorado has heard this, and created two related opportunities to get the PDMP integrated into providers' Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems, AT NO COST TO THEM, to make it easier to do PDMP checks as the law requires.
Both opportunities can be fulfilled by one trusted vendor, OpiSafe. OpiSafe is a tool that pulls PDMP data, other data, and merges it for easy viewing; and documents that practices did their required PDMP checking.
Below are the two opportunities:
- DORA has created a funding mechanism for "Integration Vendors," which includes OpiSafe, to help practices get their EHR connected to the PDMP, and the cost of that work is billed to the state by the vendor -- with no cost or application process for the provider/practice; and
- Medicaid (HCPF) has created a subsidized license program for their Prescriber Tool, which also includes OpiSafe, and the cost of the software is paid by HCPF for a period of one year (thereafter paid by the practice at an affordable rate, should you choose to continue).
The Colorado Medical Society would like to make members aware of this opportunity, and if providers/practices are interested in this completely no-cost program to get their EHR connected to the Colorado PDMP, asks that you email OpiSafe directly by [deadline extended] Friday, March 24, with the following information:
Email: Marybeth@opisafe.com
Re: PDMP-EHR Connection Opportunity
Practice Name:
Number of prescribers (who need to be able to check PDMP):
Name of EHR system:
Accept Medicaid clients (yes/no):
Emailing OpiSafe does NOT obligate you to participate, or to continue to use the free connection and software after the one-year paid period; you may use it for a year and then cancel if you decide not to continue. OpiSafe is endorsed by Colorado Medicaid and used by many major health systems in Colorado including SCL Health, Denver Health, Children's Hospital Colorado, etc., plus many smaller hospitals and clinics. You may reach Mary Beth Savory at Opisafe (marybeth@opisafe.com) for a system demo or with any questions you may have about this opportunity, or view this information from Health First Colorado.
Thanks for your interest, and we hope this will help you attain simple, consistent compliance with Colorado's PDMP checking requirements!
Categories: Communications, ASAP, Resources, Practice Management