NY State Opioid Treatment Programs Failed to Keep Tabs on Patients

An audit by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found that the state’s treatment programs didn’t adequately monitor patients with opioid use disorders to ensure they didn’t receive opioid prescriptions elsewhere.

The audit of state Department of Health records from Oct. 1, 2013 to Sept. 30, 2017, identified 18,786 Medicaid recipients who received more than 200,000 prescriptions through Medicaid while also receiving opioids as part of their treatment program for opioid use disorder.

An alarming 33 percent of the Medicaid beneficiaries received prescription opioids outside their treatment program, the auditors found.

The high percentage may indicate the failure of programs to check New York’s Internet System for Tracking Over Prescribing (I-STOP) — a tool that tracks all controlled substances dispensed by the state and reported by a pharmacy or dispenser.