Bill to let advance-practice registered nurses prescribe controlled substances on their own passes Senate, until now its roadblock
By Melissa Patrick | Kentucky Health News
After years of debate and momths of negotiations, a bill to create a path for Kentucky’s advanced-practice registered nurses to prescribe controlled substances independently has passed the state Senate and gone to the House on a 30-2-1 vote.
Senate Bill 94 was the result of a compromise brokered by Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, between the Kentucky Medical Association, which has strongly lobbied against the legidslation for years, and the Kentucky Association of Nurse Practitioners and Nurse Midwives.
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Sen. Julie Raque Adams |
“I’m sure that you will applaud both of these groups, as I do, for coming together for serious negotiations and for reaching a compromise agreement that will increase access to quality health care across Kentucky and will hopefully lead to other joint efforts between these two critically important health care professions in our state,” Adams said in presenting the bill.
Kentucky APRNs have been able to prescribe controlled substances since 2006 under a CAPA-CS with a physician. They are allowed to prescribe a 72-hour supply of a Schedule II drug, the highest class of controlled substance that can be prescribed, and SB 94 would not change that.
Under the bill, an APRN who wants to prescribe controlled substances independently must work under a CAPA-CS for four years, undergo a license review by the Kentucky Board of Nursing, maintain a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration registration and a master account in the Kentucky All-Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting system.
Adams said the bill creates “significant improvement in the structure and communication” between APRNs and their collaborating physician by creating a committee made up of APRNs and physicians who will meet at least twoce a year to review an APRN’s controlled-substance prescriptions.
The bill would establish the Controlled Substances Prescribing Council in the Office of the Inspector General at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which will meet at least quarterly to discuss the safe and appropriate prescribing and dispensing of controlled substances.
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American Assn. of Nurse Practitioners map, adapted by Ky. Health News |
“This legislation has been seven years in the making and I am particularly pleased because it included the stakeholders from the beginning,” Adams said in a news release. “We rarely get everything we want in Frankfort, but with SB 94, I believe everyone who came to the table got most of what they wanted.”
There is a lot of drug users an abused drug’s . But what I’ve seen a lot of is people that been going to the same dr for yrs being just cut off due to some new laws that went into effect. Then that’s when all kinds or bad things started to happen the meth and heroin became a huge problem in our home towns. Due to them being cut off by thei own doctors so that made them look for a way to fill that problem. Then the overdosing started and I think if they hadn’t been cut off in the first place then they wouldn’t feel like that had to look for something else. There’s reasons why all this is our everyday problem and locking them up isn’t the answer… someone needs to start looking into things deeper to find the real reason to start with …
Julie Raque Adams is a true people’s representative that is in touch with the needs of All Kentuckians she always stands up for what is right!!
I am a soon to be 58 old man in pretty good health. I have found from my past experiences with many doctors and fewer APRNS. Now after my experiences with both over the years I respect and trust my health ten fold with an APRN rather than a physician. Been misdiagnosed several times with physicians and had APRNs correct the initial diagnosis. And an APRN saved my life with the diagnosis of my prostate cancer.
I support the bill to extend the APRNs authority to prescribe any medication the see fit. And limit the authority of physicians on prescription filling. Physicians are just paid drug dealers pushing the drugs that big pharma pays them the most for. It’s not about the patients with doctors anymore, it’s about how much money they can make.