Stumbo Files KASPER Legislation

{Frankfort, Kentucky}...Kentucky House Speaker Greg Stumbo filed legislation Thursday that would require the state’s KASPER program, Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting, to move from the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to the Attorney General’s office. That office, the Kentucky State Police and the state’s medical license boards would work closely together and share any reports of abuse they discover. All doctors would be required to register with KASPER. According to the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, less than a third of the state's doctors and less than a fourth of its pharmacists had accounts as of 2010. Once registered, doctors would be required to run KASPER reports on all new patients and periodic checks on those they already see. Stumbo’s legislation would require these businesses to be owned by a licensed physician. Doctors charged with abusing their prescription privileges would be barred from providing medicine, and those found guilty, either in Kentucky or in another state, would lose their prescription priviliges.