Episode 8 - 9/26/22
In this episode Claudia Merandi and Bev Schechtman interview Dr. Neil.
He has put a tremendous amount of work into researching and analyzing NarxCare. Part 1 of NarxCare includes an introduction to NarxCare and an interview with Dr. Neil.
Part 2 will come out next week and will have interviews with three women affected by NarxCare, and also portions of a talk show Bev and Maia Szalavitz were on called 1A with NPR.
The following information can be found on our website under FAQ's/What is NarxCare.
Please check out that link for more links including the article in Wired by Maia, the patent for NarxCare, and the Ohio Study the ORS was based on.
From The Doctor Patient Forum website: NarxCare, a product of a company called Bamboo Health, is a proprietary data analytics program. It uses up to 70 data points (that only Bamboo Health knows) and mixes them with your PDMP (prescription history) to assign four 3-digit scores letting your doctor or pharmacy know if you have a high risk of abuse or overdose. There is a Narcotic Score, a Stimulant Score, and a Sedative Score, and an Overdose Risk Score (ORS). According to Bamboo Health, "NarxCare aids care teams in clinical decision making, provides support to help prevent or manage substance use disorder, and empowers states with the comprehensive platform they need to take the next step in the battle against prescription drug addiction." Essentially, NarxCare pulls data from multiple state registries looking for red flags of drug seeking behavior. The three categories of prescription medication it looks at are narcotics (opioids), stimulants (ADHD meds) and sedatives (benzos, sleeping meds, etc.).
"The NarxCare report identifies risk factors with interactive visualizations, as well as an Rx Graph, and a set of scores that numerically correspond to the patient’s PDMP data." Although Appriss states on their website that their product shouldn't be used by itself to make medical decisions, that's not what's actually happening. As shown in this NarxCare article, patients are being denied medication or even being dismissed from a medical practice based on a NarxCare score alone.
Some of the risk factors used in the proprietary algorithm are:
- The number of prescribers a patient has had in a two-year period.
- The number of pharmacies a patient used in a two-year period.
- The dosage (MME-Milligram Morphine Equivalent).
- Amount of other medications that may increase potency of other medications.
- Number of times prescriptions overlap with prescriptions from other providers.
- Any Mental Health Diagnosis Distance from patient to doctor
Disclaimer: The information in this podcast is not to be considered medical or legal advice.
