Under a new Washington state pilot program, medical information about Medicaid beneficiaries with chemical dependencies will be shared with physicians and others who have treated them in the past year, the AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports.
The program aims to prevent prescription abuse, better coordinate medical treatment and refer more addicts to treatment programs, Dr. Jeffery Thompson of the Washington state Department of Social and Health Services said.
The pilot complies with state and federal medical privacy laws, and state officials are confident that privacy and access to care will not be compromised, Thompson said. The shared patient data will not include prescriptions for antidepressants and psychiatric drugs due to state laws protecting the privacy of patients who seek mental health treatment, the AP/Post-Intelligencer reports. However, Thompson said the agency will push for legislation to allow sharing of such information among health care professionals.
The pilot is targeting about 200 Medicaid beneficiaries in Yakima County with diagnoses of drug and alcohol abuses, Thompson said. The pilot program by the end of the month will expand to Clark County, where about the same number of patients will be reviewed, he added.
State officials eventually plan to implement the program statewide, targeting a total of about 1,000 Medicaid patients, Thompson said. He added that he expects the program to be challenged by legal rights advocates for the poor.
Janet Varon, executive director of the Northwest Health Law Advocates in Seattle, said she supports the goal of the program but has some concerns regarding patient consent and privacy. "I understand the goal is to coordinate prescriptions and prevent abuse," she said. "But I still think there should be some involvement of the patient" (AP/Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1/18).