The Ohio Academy of Family Physicians has joined with the Ohio State Medical Association, the Ohio Osteopathic Association, and the Academy of Medicine of Cleveland and Northern Ohio, in requesting a meeting with appropriate State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy (SOBP) staff to discuss the current status of the Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System (OARRS) reporting. The letter requesting a meeting was sent to SOBP Director Steven Schierholt.
The letter, in part, states, “Since the SOBP began issuing monthly OARRS usage reports to the regulatory agencies, our organizations have been inundated with calls and emails from physicians who have received accusatory letters from the State Medical Board of Ohio (SMBO) about their OARRS reporting. We are hearing a common message that although physicians believe that OARRS reporting has helped them make a positive impact on reducing opiates among patients, they do not appreciate the SMBO’s aggressive approach because the letters do not give the physicians information to support the SMBO’s claim that they are not in compliance with OARRS.”
The letter goes on to say, “We would like to better understand the collection and dissemination process that goes into formatting the OARRS report that the SMBO receives. Also, we would like to discuss whether anything can be done to ensure that the appropriate physicians are receiving letters from the SMBO.”
OAFP physicians and staff met previously with the SMBO to attempt to inform them as to problems with data mined by the SOBP from OARRS. Even though the SMBO is aware of problems with the data, they have chosen to send threatening emails to licensees and put the onus on them to “read the tea leaves” to figure out why they show up on reports as being OARRS non-compliant. Since the SMBO has been unresponsive to our concerns we will take those concerns to the SOBP to see if the data can be cleaned up before it is sent to the SMBO.