AZ SB1283

Medical practitioners must obtain a patient utilization report from the controlled substances prescription monitoring program database before prescribing opioid analgesics or benzodiazepines (schedule II, III, or IV) for new treatment courses and at least quarterly during treatment, beginning October 1, 2017 or 60 days after statewide health information exchange integration, whichever is later.

Exemptions from the database review requirement include patients receiving hospice or palliative care, cancer treatment, dialysis, inpatient institutional care, or prescriptions for no more than 10 days for acute injury/procedure pain or 5-day prescriptions where the database shows no other controlled substance prescriptions in the preceding 30 days.

Medical practitioners acting in good faith are protected from liability or disciplinary action for requesting, receiving, or failing to request prescription monitoring data, or for acting or failing to act based on that data.

The Arizona State Board of Pharmacy must conduct an annual voluntary user satisfaction survey and provide results by December 1 each year to legislative and executive leadership.

The Board must contract for a third-party analysis of the program by January 1, 2017, and provide quarterly reports through 2021 on electronic health records integration of the prescription monitoring program database.