Missouri Senate advances prescription drug monitoring bill

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri got one step closer Wednesday to establishing a prescription-drug monitoring program after a heavily-debated measure that would track when prescriptions for controlled substances are written and filed advanced in the Senate.

On a 20-13 vote, Senators gave initial approval for a program designed to prevent so-called doctor shoppers from going to multiple doctors to get multiple prescriptions filled. Missouri is the only state without a prescription drug monitoring program.

The bill was sponsored by one of the fiercest critics of monitoring programs, Republican Sen. Rob Schaaf, who said keeping a database of people's medical information is an invasion of privacy.

Supporters of Schaaf's proposal say the bill has more data protections than other prescription-drug monitoring measures.

The bill creates a system that would warn doctors or pharmacists of signs of potential abuse but wouldn't allow them to see more specific records. It also sets a 180-day time limit for keeping prescription information.

Opponents of the legislation question the effectiveness of such systems in preventing addiction. Opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. continue to rise, despite state efforts to create monitoring programs.

Schaaf said widespread support for such programs urged him to create a program he calls more secure than any others in the country. He said his proposal was better than an alternative making its way through the House, which would create a system without the encryption protections and the time limit.

"I've come to the conclusion that if we don't pass something that protects our liberty, we might be forced to pass something that won't," he said.