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Prescription monitoring for veterinarians?

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New Hampshire, like most states, has a prescription drug monitoring database, which tracks the history of prescriptions for drugs with a greater risk for addiction and abuse, such as OxyContin and Vicodin.

Starting in 2016, all healthcare professionals in the state were required to check the database before writing a prescription for one of the painkillers it covers. That included health care professionals whose patients are furry and four-legged.

Veterinarians don’t generally prescribe opioid-based drugs for animals, but they do sometimes give their patients prescriptions for other drugs, such as tramadol, that can be abused by humans.

Changing the law

Granite State veterinarians protested the move successfully, and in early 2017 a bill was passed that exempted them from the requirement to check the database before writing a prescription.

"It's inappropriate and illegal for someone who's not a human medical professional to make a medical determination about human beings. "

- Dr. Stephen Crawford, member of the New Hampshire Board of Veterinary Medicine

Veterinarians argued that the requirement to check the prescription database forced them to make a medical assessment on human patients, something they were not qualified to do. Others worried that concerns about liability would lead vets to simply opt out of writing pets prescriptions that their owners could potentially abuse, even if the animal patient would benefit from the medicine.

Some even compared it to demanding that pediatricians check the database for parents’ prescription histories before giving medication to children.

Pushing back

However, others argue the Legislature was wrong to exempt veterinarians from the requirement to check the database.

"Any veterinarian with some medical background can surely figure out if a client is abusing drugs. … We’re not asking veterinarians to look at their clients’ health records. We want them to look at their prescription histories for controlled substances."

- Michelle Ricco Jonas, manager of the New Hampshire Prescription Drug Monitoring Database

Supporters of reinstating the requirement argue that it will help prevent addicts from using—or even abusing—their pets in order to get their hands on more drugs, something that has been seen in several high-profile cases in other states. They maintain that the assessment vets are being asked to make of pet owners’ histories is reasonable and that the requirement to check the database should be reinstated.

Learn more about New Hampshire's Prescription Drug Monitoring Program.

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