House Energy and Commerce Committee approves PDMP authorization bill with language to help promote collaboration with State substance abuse agencies

On Thursday July 23, the House Energy and Commerce Committee considered and approved H.R. 1725, the National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting (NASPER) Reauthorization Act of 2015.  The author of the bill is Representative Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and co-sponsors include Representatives Kennedy (D-MA), Buscon (R-IN), and Pallone (D-N.J.).  The Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health is Joe Pitts (R-PA) and the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee is Gene Green (D-TX).  The bill seeks to continue the momentum gained by States on issues related to data interoperability by requiring applicants for NASPER funds to include certain information in their application.  For example, H.R. 1725 requires applicants to report the extent to which the PDMP program is able to share information with other health IT systems such as e-prescribing systems, health information exchanges and electronic health records systems.

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