Skip to main content

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!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Does DEA Compliance Training Entail?

DEA registrants and their employees have to understand the regulations and requirements set forth by the DEA. Training will equip them to handle controlled substances safely and in a compliant manner. Any clinic, hospital, pharmacy or other healthcare facility that handles controlled substances requires DEA compliance training for sure. While this is not mandatory by law, on a practical front it ensures that all the staff members are well aware of applicable regulations and can work to ensure complete compliance at all times. DEA compliance service providers offer a suite of services that include training packages as well. There are various programs like general compliance training, drug diversion training, safeguarding controlled substances, how to conduct mock DEA audits and more. These could be online or offline.   While every training program will vary in terms of the content base, the topics that are usually covered are: Overview of DEA regulations: The program will first ac...
Post a Comment
Read more

Steps to Control Drug Diversion

Drug diversion is a serious offence and DEA licensees cannot simply close their eyes to the possibility of this happening at their practice or facility. It is better to take proactive steps to nip the problem in the bud! The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a branch of the U.S. Federal government that is tasked with preventing all kinds of drug related criminal activity including trafficking and diversion. For this, it enforces a range of controlled substance regulations , including veterinary DEA regulations , to regulate and license medical healthcare prescription drug distribution. They are quick to red flag and investigate even the slightest suspicions by putting a practitioner/practice under surveillance and instigating criminal proceedings if needed.   To avoid the heavy repercussions of a DEA investigation and criminal action, the registrants should take strict measures to prevent any kind of drug diversion or abuse in the first place. Such as: Do not print the full ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A DEA Form for Every Eventuality

The DEA prescribes a set of forms to regulate everything from the registration and license renewal to the ordering of certain drugs, transfer, theft, loss and even surrendering of unused drugs. There are certain drugs that serve a crucial medical purpose, yet, their use is fraught with risks. Unchecked or excessive usage by patients can lead to dependence and even grow into a full-blown depression. Then, there is always the threat of the drugs being misappropriated or stolen, thus leading to misuse and abuse. Such drugs have been termed as controlled substances and are governed by the Controlled Substances Act in our country. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been identified as the federal enforcement agency which takes it task pretty seriously. There are specific DEA forms for controlled substances for various aspects of handling the controlled substances with an eye on checking drug diversion, drug trafficking and other related crimes.   Let us take a look at some of...
Post a Comment
Read more