Electronic Prescribing: Narcotics and Controlled Substances
The Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Interim Final Rule (IFR) on electronic prescriptions for controlled substances was published in the March 31, 2010 Federal Register, and went into effect June 1, 2010.
For transmission to actually happen, all parties including the Doctor, EMR, and Pharmacy must be "certified." The DEA will define which companies may do the certifying, but the processes and certifications are yet to be put in place. Keep in mind that State regulations may supersede the DEA rulings, and many pharmacies may accept Schedule I narcotics, but not Schedule II – V.
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Please Note: Express Scripts and NextRX have merged. As of January 3rd, 2011 Wellpoint NEXTRx Mail Order Pharmacy will no longer appear in the pharmacies list in your electronic prescribing screen and you should choose the Express Scripts Mail Order Pharmacy instead.
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Although narcotics are by and far the most prescribed drug, you should account for the prescribing of NSAIDs and antibiotics. Doing so will help avoid any penalty as these prescriptions will count towards the total E&M visits you electronically prescribe and report between January 1, 2011 and June 30, 2011. Be aware; post op visits (CPT code 99024) will not count towards these 10 E&M visits.
In addition, doctors will need to be identified and get a hard token of some sort that would be used to access prescribing software. Once this is defined our NexTech clients will be notified. Also, certification standards for the EMR and pharmacies need to be released and once these are released both the EMR and pharmacies will need to be certified to transmit controlled substances. Certification standards have yet to be released for these.