Nocopi ventured into scripts this month, when the federal government began requiring doctors to use prescription pads with at least one antifraud feature for fee-for-service Medicaid patients. The federal standards will tighten further Oct. 1, requiring pads to have three safety features to limit Medicaid fraud.
That could give a big boost to pad-makers, though it is not guaranteed.
"It's a bit of a fragmented marketplace," Matt Soccorsi, executive vice president of Triple-I in Yardley, which supplies pads and other practice-related items to more than 200,000 doctors.
For example, most Medicaid recipients in the Philadelphia area will be unaffected initially because they get their care through HMOs, which are exempted from the rules.
New Jersey and nine other states, including New York, already require tamper-resistant forms for some prescriptions.
Prescription fraud can lead to abuse and endanger patients. Retail pharmacies dispensed about 3.4 billion prescriptions in 2006, according to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. Some patients try to alter prescriptions to increase the number of pills or even change the medication.
In New York, an official form for all written prescriptions has saved $60 million in Medicaid billings in six months, according to the state health department.
New forms, of course, are not a cure-all in the era of Internet pharmacies, where more patients are expected to get their medicines. In a 2007 review of 187 Internet sites selling prescription drugs, 84 percent did not even require a prescription, said Susan E. Foster, director of policy research at The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
"There really needs to be a really comprehensive approach," Foster said.
