COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
COMMITTEE SUBSTITUTE
FOR
Senate Bill No. 365
(By Senators Jenkins, Stollings, Tomblin (Mr. President), Edgell,
Foster, Plymale and Prezioso)
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[Originating in the Committee on the Judiciary;
reported February 25, 2010.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §60A-9-5 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to updating the means of accessing
the West Virginia Controlled Substances Monitoring Program
database; requiring all prescribers or dispensers of Schedule
II, III or IV controlled substances to have online access to
the West Virginia Controlled Substances Monitoring Program
database; authorizing persons or entities with access to the
database to delegate access to database to others; limiting
liability practitioners for good faith reliance on database;
authorizing the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner access to
the database; clarifying that practitioners have no duty to
access database; authorizing rules for delegation of access;
and rulemaking.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §60A-9-5 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 9. CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES MONITORING.
§60A-9-5. Confidentiality; limited access to records; period of
retention; no civil liability for required reporting.
(a) The information required by this article to be kept by the
State Board of Pharmacy is confidential and is open to inspection
only by inspectors and agents of the State Board of Pharmacy,
members of the West Virginia State Police expressly authorized by
the Superintendent of the West Virginia State Police to have access
to the information, authorized agents of local law-enforcement
agencies as a member of a drug task force, authorized agents of the
federal Drug Enforcement Administration, duly authorized agents of
the Bureau for Medical Services and the Workers' Compensation
Commission,
duly authorized agents of the Office of the Chief
Medical Examiner for use in post-mortem examinations, duly
authorized agents of licensing boards of practitioners in this
state and other states authorized to prescribe Schedules II, III
and IV controlled substances, prescribing practitioners and
pharmacists and persons with an enforceable court order or
regulatory agency administrative subpoena:
Provided, That all
information released by the State Board of Pharmacy must be related
to a specific patient or a specific individual or entity under
investigation by any of the above parties except that practitioners who prescribe controlled substances may request specific data
related to their Drug Enforcement Administration controlled
substance registration number or for the purpose of providing
treatment to a patient. The Board shall maintain the information
required by this article for a period of not less than five years.
Notwithstanding any other provisions of this code to the contrary,
data obtained under the provisions of this article may be used for
compilation of educational, scholarly or statistical purposes as
long as the identities of persons or entities remain confidential.
No individual or entity required to report under section four of
this article may be subject to a claim for civil damages or other
civil relief for the reporting of information to the Board of
Pharmacy as required under and in accordance with the provisions of
this article;
(b) All practitioners, as that term is defined in section one
hundred-one, article two of this chapter who prescribe or dispense
schedule II, III or IV controlled substances shall, on or before
July 1, 2011 have online or other form of electronic access to the
West Virginia Controlled Substances Monitoring Program database;
(c) Persons or entities with access to the West Virginia
Controlled Substances Monitoring Program database pursuant to this
section may, pursuant to rules promulgated by the Board of
Pharmacy, delegate appropriate personnel to have access to said
database;
(d) Good faith reliance by a practitioner on information
contained in the West Virginia Controlled Substances Monitoring Program database in prescribing or dispensing or refusing or
declining to prescribe or dispense a schedule II, III or IV
controlled substance shall constitute an absolute defense in any
civil or criminal action brought due to prescribing or dispensing
or refusing or declining to prescribe or dispense; and
(e) The Board of Pharmacy is hereby authorized to promulgate
an emergency rule under chapter twenty-nine-A to effectuate the
amendments to this section enacted during the 2010 Regular Session
of the Legislature.
(f) Nothing in the article shall be construed to require a
practitioner to access the West Virginia Controlled Substances
Monitoring Program database.
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(NOTE: Strike-throughs indicate language that would be
stricken from the present law, and underscoring indicates new
language that would be added.)