The National Pain Report recently asked if patients are being denied legitimate prescriptions for pain.

The Florida Board of Pharmacy is trying to see if it can do something about the number of prescription medication denied in Florida which totals in the thousands. The Board of Pharmacy makes the rules that pharmacists in Florida follow. They have now created the Controlled Substances Standards Committee. The Board of Pharmacy will try and find a solution to ease the prescription problem.

Pharmacists in Florida who have been feeling the dissatisfaction of patients and media scrutiny, put some of the blame the DEA for the problem. However, neither the Food and Drug Administration nor the Drug Enforcement Administration takes responsibility for legitimate pain patients being denied prescriptions. The FDA says that any pharmacists not filling prescriptions is an issue for state regulators. The DEA, which rescheduled hydrocodone last fall, says that pharmacists who refuse to fill real prescriptions are not doing their jobs.

The Government Accountability Office reported that the FDA and DEA – the two agencies that oversee drug products – should be working closer together on this issue.

Some physicians feel that there are blurred lines between the two problems–chronic pain and substance abuse.  The DEA is concerned with substance abuse.  It is up to the medical providers to show they use the opioids for legitimate medical reasons and provide proper medical care and supervision of their patients.