AGENCY TARGETS 'DOCTOR SHOPPERS'

Through its data collection program, the West Virginia Board of Pharmacy
has been helping identify and prevent "doctor shoppers" -- patients who go
to multiple doctors to get the same drug due to addiction or to sell it.

"We have had patients who have seen 17 different doctors and have filled
prescriptions in 40 different pharmacies," said William T. Douglass Jr.,
the board's executive director and general counsel. "This system is trying
to stop those kinds of things."

Douglass added the system is not meant to prevent cancer victims or
patients with chronic pain from getting medicine.

The pharmacy board program, which began in December 2002, collects
information about who prescribes, who sells and who buys controlled
pharmaceuticals throughout the state, as well as how customers pay for the
drugs.

"This is a tool that has been used to prevent drug abuse and diversion from
legitimate uses. They have it in about 20 states now," Douglass said.

Douglass said the program is designed to monitor the use of federally and
state-controlled substances, not antibiotics, blood pressure or arthritis
medicines.

"It is a red flag when a person comes in with $1,000 in cash to pay for a
prescription, especially for pain killers or addictive substances," he said.

The board has been getting information from a company called Atlantic
Associates, which has collected data directly from pharmacists and drugstores.

But at the end of the month, the board will start using its own new
computer program to collect information from pharmacists.

"It is a new reporting procedure which is easier for everyone," Douglass
said. "We are eliminating the outside vendor."

Access to database information is limited to individuals allowed to look at
it under state law, such as treating pharmacists and physicians, agents
from state boards that license pharmacists and physicians, and certain
members of the State Police.