Obscure Medicaid drug rule may hurt recipients

According to a report in USA Today, "an obscure provision" slipped into a Iraq spending bill in May threatens to leave some poor and disabled Medicaid recipients without prescription drugs in October. (Source: "Medicaid drug rule may hurt recipients" Sept. 17, 2007.) The rule, designed to crack down on Medicaid fraud, requires that all "non-electronic prescriptions for Medicaid patients be written on tamper-resistant paper." According to the article, very few doctors already use this type of paper.  "Nobody really knew where this came from," the article quotes Jamila Edwards of the California Primary Care Association as saying. "The patient's going to be in the middle thinking, 'How come I didn't get my medication?' " State Medicaid directors and more than 100 organizations are asking congressional leaders for a one-year delay to the rule.