The government and your prescription privacy

[lesliepear]

Take a look at this LJ entry:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/exileinparadise/151551.html?view=128255#t128255

I'm not too thrilled with government seeing all anexity, depression, sleep and painkiller prescriptions, especially since many of them can be for short term chronic conditions.

Comments

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

Anyone know where you can find out what drugs are:
Schedules II, III, and IV?

[hel_ana]

I linked to it above, in my first response to scarlett75

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

I saw that but I was hoping to find something with specifc drug names. I highly doubt any of the medications I'm currently on would be found there (unless they start putting in things like xanax and zoloft).

[secanth.livejournal.com]

"Schedule III, IV, or V — drugs with an abuse risk less than Schedule II. These drugs also have safe and accepted medical uses in the United States. Schedule III, IV, or V drugs include those containing smaller amounts of certain narcotic and non-narcotic drugs, anti-anxiety drugs, tranquilizers, sedatives, stimulants, and non-narcotic analgesics. Some examples are acetaminophen with codeine (Tylenol® No.3), paregoric, hydrocodone with acetaminophen (Vicodin®), diazepam (Valium®), alprazolam (Xanax®), propoxyphene (Darvon®), and pentazocine (Talwin®)."

This is from a Texas website, but that's about all they have on that type of thing. Schedule 1 are the 'non-legal/medical' drugs, II includes most of the more powerful painkillers.

[hel_ana]

Found this:

http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/schedules/listby_sched/sched2.htm
http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/schedules/listby_sched/sched3.htm
http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/schedules/listby_sched/sched4.htm

And Xanax is the first drug in the schedule 4 list.

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

I don't recognize too many of them (I'm guessing most of them are serious pain killers or mental health drugs?). Still, if they start tracking them, they'll probably find a lot of people who have acute conditions vs. chronic abusers. They'd have to somehow figure out which doctors prescribe this stuff - because for some doctor's a high rate of those Rx's may be normal (pschyatrists or surgeons - especially a top notch specialized surgeon that people are referred to).

[hel_ana]

A whole bunch of them are anabolic steroids.

And of course, the illegal drugs (cocaine, LSD, etc) are on there too.

But yes, this whole thing will require masses of number crunchers.

Bureaucratic Nightmare

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

They'd probably monitor some OB/GYN who prescribed too much percoset for c-sections!

Re: Bureaucratic Nightmare

[hel_ana]

Well, to be honest with you, I suspect they're going to be more concentrating on things like

"oh, look.. Jimmy here got a prescription for a 30 day supply of OxyContin on February 5, then on February 12th, he got a second prescription for the same thing from a different doctor/pharmacy, and on the 19th, he got a third. Perhaps we should talk to jimmy"