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Why Veterinarians Should Have Personal DEA Numbers?

It is better for every medical practitioner who uses controlled substances, including veterinarians, to have his or her own DEA registration as using a common one has the potential to run afoul with the DEA.

Drugs that have a potential for addiction or abuse are classified as controlled substances. The Controlled Substances Act regulates the Schedule I to V drugs which includes medical formulations that are used for pets as well.

Therefore, veterinarians also need a veterinary DEA license to be able to prescribe, administer or dispense the scheduled drugs. This entails additional responsibility to abide by the regulations related to storing, tracking and recording all controlled substances used by the practice as specified by the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.
 
veterinary DEA license

In fact, veterinary practices often use one DEA registration number to order controlled substances for all veterinarians in the practice. According to state and federal regulations, all the veterinarians in a practice are permitted to use the same DEA number to order, administer and dispense the controlled medications. In such cases, the DEA registrant is liable to comply with all the controlled substance laws while ensuring that others who are using controlled substances ordered under his or her DEA number are also compliant.

However, each veterinarian that prescribes these drugs should mandatorily have his or her own DEA registration number. In fact, experts suggest that it is better if each veterinarian has their own DEA license irrespective of whether they are directly prescribing the scheduled medications or not.

Staying out of the woods


To begin with, it is not fair for one registrant to have the onus of responsibility for all the practitioners who are dispensing and administering controlled substances in the practice. Supervision can become an issue when the DEA-registered practitioner is on vacation, falls sick or even goes out for lunch! In case any of the regulations regarding storage or recordkeeping happen to fall short or erroneous, it can spell grave trouble for the registrant.

Then again, it is crucial to stay up to date with the veterinary license; any delay in renewing the license is reported by the veterinary board to the DEA. This will usually warrant a visit from the DEA as – lack of license to practice veterinary medicine translates into a lack of DEA license as well!

Help is at hand


Following all the rules and regulations for controlled substances to a T can get quite taxing for medical practitioners. There is so much involved, right from getting a DEA veterinary license to keeping the scheduled drugs under lock and key as required in the protocols. Any minor transgression or omission, no matter how inadvertent, can come back to haunt the registrant.

The best way to keep all this stress at bay is to engage the services of professional service providers like Titan Group. Being former DEA special agents, diversion and state investigators with decades of experience in the field, they can guide and assist in ensuring that the veterinarians stay within the law at all times!
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