The Journal of the Arkansas Medical Society Issue 9 Vol 114 | Page 10

as of 2016, Arkansas was second in the nation in
regards to opioid prescribing rates. We hope that the
upcoming initiatives discussed will aid in that effort.
Table 1: Top 300 Opioid Prescribers
(DEA Numbers) by Specialty
Number of DEA
Numbers Percent
General Practice (Family, Internal, Pediatrics) 205 68.33
Anesthesiology/Pain 39 13.00
Surgery (Neurosurgery, General, Oral, Ortho) 12 4.00
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 10 3.33
APN 7 2.33
Geriatrics 5 1.67
Hospital/Clinic DEA 5 1.67
Hematology/Oncology 4 1.33
Rheumatology 3 1.00
Emergency Medicine 2 0.67
Neurology 2 0.67
Out-of-State Physician at VA 2 0.67
Adolescent Medicine 1 0.33
Hospice and Palliative Care 1 0.33
Osteopathic 1 0.33
Psychiatry 1 0.33
Specialty
tem in November of 2017, and that system allows
prescribers to self-identify from the list developed
by the National Provider Identifier (NPI) records. Mov-
ing forward, analyses on self-identified specialties
will be possible.
Stakeholders in the state are moving forward
to help improve opioid prescribing. Specifically, three
initiatives are underway. First, the Arkansas State
Medical Board will issue new prescribing guidelines
for acute and chronic pain in the spring of 2018.
These guidelines, based on the recent CDC guide-
lines, 7 will help support appropriate opioid prescrib-
ing in the state. Second, UAMS will provide online
materials about appropriate opioid prescribing start-
ing in March 2018. Third, ADH will begin sending
Peer Comparison Reports in April 2018, as required
by Act 820 of 2017. These individualized reports will
provide information regarding current prescription
volume, prescribing behavior and PMP use. Com-
parison of these measures to other prescribers in the
same, self-identified NPI specialty will be included
in the Peer Comparison Reports. These reports will
enable prescribers to track their prescribing behav-
ior over time and to compare it to other prescribers.
Each prescriber report will be electronically deliv-
ered on a quarterly basis directly to the prescriber
AR PMP dashboard (the main page after logging into
the AR PMP system). The purpose of these reports is
to give prescribers an idea of how they compare to
their peers overall as well as peers within their same
specialty in regards to opioid prescribing. A number
of states have begun this work. 10 Currently, the PMP
works with the Medical Board to develop reports to
monitor opioid prescribing by their licensees. Previ-
ous reports have included information about the top
prescribers according to prescription volume, mor-
phine equivalent dose, prescribing rates, and highly
diverted drug combinations. The Peer Comparison
Reports, therefore, add the ability for prescribers
to self-monitor and self-correct, if needed. More
detailed information on the reports and the metrics
used can be found at: http://www.healthy.arkansas.
gov/programs-services/topics/prescription-monitor-
ing-program.
It is important that the state move forward in a
concerted effort to curb the opioid epidemic where,
202 • THE JOURNAL OF THE ARKANSAS MEDICAL SOCIETY
References
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