After AG probe, CVS adopts new opioid rules

Pharmacists working in the 350 CVS drug stores in Massachusetts will have to consult a database of prescriptions before dispensing powerful painkillers under a first-in-the-nation agreement designed to help stem the opioid crisis.

The pact, the result of an investigation by Attorney General Maura Healey into CVS stores improperly dispensing drugs to high-risk patients, emerges as opioids have left thousands dead across New England.

“Pharmacies are on the front lines of this epidemic,” Healey said at a news conference Thursday at the Dimock Center, a community health and human services agency in Roxbury. “They are the gatekeepers for powerful prescription drugs, powerful prescription opioids, that have helped fuel this current crisis.”

Under the agreement, CVS pharmacists will have to check the state’s Prescription Monitoring Program, which tracks every opioid prescription and can reveal when a patient is visiting multiple doctors or pharmacies.

Read more: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/09/01/cvs-agrees-require-pharmacists-consult-prescription-database/QAuqd6l5r4R6H7intg8sWJ/story.html