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IPPMC Political Action

Aug. 12, 2005 -- With the flourish of a pen, President Bush improved patient care -- promoting quality pain relief with accountability -- and made history for the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, when he signed NASPER prescription drug abuse legislation into law Thursday night, Aug. 11. ASIPP, a national organization of 3,300 members headquartered in Paducah, Ky., has been working for the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting (NASPER) Act since 1999.

Through three sessions of Congress, ASIPP made NASPER its legislative priority, making more than 1200 legislative visits, writing thousands of letters to legislators and visiting the White House and other governmental agencies nearly a dozen times.

The measure is intended to improve patient access and prevent "doctor shopping" and drug diversion — a practice in which patients receive prescriptions, such as painkillers, from multiple doctors to treat the same illness.

According to Congressional sources, NASPER becomes the first law originated by a physicians' organization. "This is really a historic achievement for a relatively small organization," said ASIPP founder and CEO Laxmaiah Manchikanti, M.D., who testified before Congress and promoted the bill through three sessions.

Effect on patients, health care providers

While he is pleased with the organization's success, Manchikanti said he is most gratified by the outcome for patients and their health care providers. "This will not only relieve physicians from the fear of giving controlled substances to the wrong patients for the wrong reasons, but also it will improve patient access with the patient obtaining the proper medication."

The national program will allow physicians and pharmacists to access patient records, showing what controlled substances are already prescribed. That will help doctors avoid duplication of prescriptions and the possibility of prescribing one medication that could be harmful when mixed with another, Manchikanti said.

The bill authorizes spending $60 million from fiscal year 2006 to 2010 to create a federal grant program housed at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help establish or improve state-run prescription drug monitoring programs. Twenty states, including Kentucky , have such programs. Creation of a national program will require states to share information, a critical component of its success in border areas where patients may live in one state and seek medical care in another.