400 drug collection sites<\/a> with secure dropboxes to return unused medication. The number has gone down significantly in recent years with the closures of numerous Bartell Drugs and Rite Aid locations.<\/p>\nNot everywhere in Washington has these kiosks. Over 100 cities and towns don\u2019t meet requirements to have one per 50,000 residents, according to data from February. These are mostly small towns with just a few thousand residents or less. For example, in places with under 1,000 people, 91% don\u2019t meet the kiosk requirement. In Seattle, on the other hand, there are more than 40 kiosks.<\/p>\n
The average driving time from the city center to the nearest kiosk in places that have them is five minutes, according to the audit. But it\u2019s 25 minutes in many of these small communities.<\/p>\n
Only Washington\u2019s two smallest counties, Columbia and Garfield counties, don\u2019t have any drop-off sites. All counties have a mail option to allow residents to send medication directly to a disposal site with prepaid envelopes. Almost all of the drugs have been returned via kiosk. This is common across states with similar programs, said Carly Bartz-Overman, who runs the office in the Department of Health that oversees this initiative.<\/p>\n
State lawmakers suggested increasing mail medication returns to get more drugs collected.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith so many of our communities facing pharmacy deserts,\u201d said Rep. Gerry Pollet, D-Seattle, \u201cit seems like the likelihood of improving performance from kiosks is pretty low compared to the potential for improving performance through mailers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bartz-Overman said she was also surprised the mail isn\u2019t used more often to return pills but doesn\u2019t believe people will start using that option more.<\/p>\n
State law requires some smaller communities to have a dropbox even if there isn\u2019t an eligible site for one. Federal law only allows them in places like pharmacies, hospitals and police stations, but eligible sites don\u2019t have to participate under state law.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, the current program requirements may not be achievable,\u201d Sydney Romero, a research analyst with the committee, said in a hearing on the audit last week. She noted similar programs elsewhere have less restrictive mandates.<\/p>\n
Washington\u2019s requirement makes it hard for state officials to provide oversight, as they don\u2019t have a way to recognize progress toward complying with an unreachable benchmark, according to the audit.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also been difficult for the Department of Health to measure the program\u2019s efficiency and cost effectiveness, and the lack of data makes it harder to know what to prioritize.<\/p>\n
No data is collected on which types of drugs are collected.<\/p>\n
To assess the program\u2019s success, the Legislature required three separate evaluations, but all are incomplete, according to auditors.<\/p>\n
The audit recommends the Legislature continue the program past 2029 with changes to address these challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look forward to working with the Legislature and operator on determining what measures and goals the department should put in place to ensure the program continues to serve Washington residents,\u201d Bartz-Overman said.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, auditors recommended lawmakers amend how the program is funded, because otherwise, health officials warn, the program may not have the money to support its two full-time staffers. Almost every year, expenditures have surpassed revenue. The Department of Health has needed to use other money and an infusion from the Legislature to close that gap, according to the audit.<\/p>\n
But last fiscal year, the program\u2019s revenue was $533,000 from the operators. The Department of Health spent $405,000. Estimated revenue this year is expected to be under $300,000 with Inmar\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n
Bartz-Overman said she hopes the state will revamp the fee structure to \u201ckeep our program whole.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally published by the Washington State Standard<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington\u2019s program to collect medication so it doesn\u2019t end up in the wrong hands has brought in over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":858414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[97,243],"class_list":["post-858413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-medication"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}