NEW ORLEANS — The Drug Enforcement Administration is close to completing a final rule that would let physicians provide up to a 90-day supply of schedule II controlled substances without requiring patients to come into the office each month.
Under this change, physicians would be able to issue three monthly prescriptions at once and specify a future fill date for each one. The DEA statute currently prohibits the refilling of schedule II prescriptions, an agency official said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pain Medicine.
The regulation, which is currently being finalized, will be “substantially” similar to a notice of proposed rule making issued by the DEA last September, said Mark W. Caverly, chief of the liaison and policy section of the Office of Diversion Control at the DEA.
“We're going to make some tweaks in the language and try to explain some things a little bit better,” he said.
Mr. Caverly would not offer an estimate on exactly when the final rule would be published.
The public comment period on the proposal ended on Nov. 6 and the DEA received 264 official comments, 87% of which supported the proposal. Opponents of the rule said that it would increase the supply of highly abusable drugs to patients and that it's important to see pain patients every 30 days. Other critics noted that a 90-day supply of medications is inadequate and the limit should be 180 days or there should be no time limits at all.
This pending regulation and other recent communications from the DEA should help to demonstrate to the physician community that the agency is not interested in stopping physicians from writing valid and medically necessary prescriptions, Mr. Caverly said. “DEA and the pain treatment community have strong common interests in the effective and adequate prescribing of controlled substances for the treatment of pain.”
Mr. Caverly also outlined some areas where DEA officials plan to clarify agency policy in the future. For example, agency officials plan to address the issue of whether locum tenens physicians who work in multiple states need to have multiple DEA licenses. They also will look at who should be authorized to call the pharmacy to change medications, how consumers should submit prescription drugs for destruction, and issues related to telemedicine and telepharmacy.