Pubdate: Wed, 04 Jul 2001 Source: Charleston Daily Mail (WV) Copyright: 2001 Charleston Daily Mail Contact: http://www.dailymail.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/76 Author: Sam Tranum Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?186 (Oxycontin) DRUG COSTING STATE PEIA's Spending On Oxycontin Up 38 Percent Wednesday July 04, 2001; 10:15 AM As law enforcement and drug rehabilitation professionals grapple with widespread abuse of the painkiller OxyContin, the amount the state spends on the drug continues to climb. Delegate Mary Pearl Compton, D-Monroe, said the state should look into its rising OxyContin costs. She is chairwoman of the house committee on health and human resources. The Public Employees Insurance Agency spent 38 percent more on OxyContin in the first 11 months of the 2000-2001 year than it did in the entire 1999-2000 financial year. That's an increase from $589,000 to $812,000. In their lists of drugs they spend the most on, the state Medicaid program and the Workers' Compensation Division have both ranked the drug in their top five. Despite the rising costs and concerns about abuse, legislators and state officials say the drug is very good when used as it was intended. "You would hate to deny anybody use of a drug that is certainly beneficial to their health, and in killing pain, it's certainly one that does," said Sen. Roman Prezioso, D-Marion, chairman of the Senate's committee on health and human resources. That's part of the reason that when PEIA adopted a new list of preferred drugs, OxyContin was on it. PEIA members pay $15 for a 33-day supply of drugs on the preferred list and $25 for drugs that are not on the list. "If a person is cancer-stricken and they're terminal, that drug is very effective in pain remediation, and in that situation if its prescribed for what it's intended to do, we don't have any problems," said PEIA director Tom Susman. "Unfortunately, it's become a drug of high abuse," said Felice Joseph, pharmacy benefits administrator for the agency. Susman said the agency is not encouraging the drug's use by keeping it on the preferred provider list. In fact, he said, the agency recently instituted a program it hopes will clamp down on abuse of OxyContin and other drugs. A letter he sent out in May outlined the program for the doctors the agency works with. "The impetus for this program is the escalating use of OxyContin and other narcotics by citizens of West Virginia, as well as other states across the country," Susman wrote. The letter says PEIA's prescription drug benefits manager, Merck-Medco, will contact doctors with patients who are using more than one doctor for controlled substance claims in a given three-month period. Merck-Medco also will contact doctors with patients who ask for more than four controlled substances per quarter, or who are receiving more than 120 days of therapy with a controlled substance. "It is our intention to proactively manage the use of this narcotic before PEIA is faced with the increases that Medicaid and Workers' Compensation have seen in (their) expenditures," Susman wrote. "Therefore, PEIA will be continually monitoring the utilization of OxyContin." Susman said despite the sharp increase in the past year, OxyContin doesn't rank in the top 25 of PEIA's list of drugs it spends the most money on. He said the agency spent $85 million on drugs this year. It spent $812,000 on OxyContin in the first 11 months of the 2000-2001 fiscal year. Joseph said the drug never appears in PEIA's top 10 list. She said PEIA's 168,000 members are more likely to use cholesterol or diabetes medications than painkillers. Susman said he believes increased awareness of OxyContin abuse helped bring PEIA's spending on the drug down in the closing months of the last financial year, though he hadn't seen month-by-month numbers yet. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe