Diving brief:
- Telehealth groups urge Drug Enforcement Administration to speed up a proposed rule that would allow and regulate the prescribing of controlled substances through virtual care.
- In a letter sent Tuesday According to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram, more than 200 telehealth advocacy groups, providers and virtual care companies have called on the agency to quickly issue the regulation because clinicians and pharmacies would need time to comment and prepare for implementation.
- In October, the DEA and HHS temporarily extended prescribing flexibilities during pandemic for controlled substances until this year. The agency said it would work to create new standards or guarantees by fall.
Dive overview:
During the COVID-19 public health emergency, regulators have granted exceptions to Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008, which required most practitioners to undergo at least one in-person evaluation before prescribing controlled substances. The goal was to ensure that patients could still access care during the pandemic.
Last summer, the DEA said it was “open to think” a special registration process for telemedicine prescribing of certain controlled substances.
The agency had previously received tens of thousands of comments expressing concern over a proposal that would have added a 30-day supply limit for virtual prescriptions for certain controlled substances, including for the opioid use disorder treatment buprenorphine.
Telehealth and provider groups have argued that virtual care helps patients receive care where they might otherwise go without it, including for substance use disorders — a growing public health challenge in the USA
Research also showed that the expansion of telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic increased the number of people receiving care. common mental health disorders and reduced the chances of medically treated opioid overdoses among Medicare patients.
The letter released this week says a rule allowing telehealth prescribing of controlled substances is “crucial” to ensuring continued access to telehealth care, including for mental health and substance abuse treatment.
But the groups argued that a proposal should be released immediately to give stakeholders ample time to comment on the rule and prepare. If the DEA implemented a special registration process, it would take “significant operational time” to set up. Pharmacies and others in the health care delivery system would need time to train their staff.
A significant policy change later in the year could also impact clinicians' ability to schedule appointments with patients to ensure continuity of care.
“While we hope the final regulations will preserve patient access, any policy change requiring patients to seek in-person care would be extremely disruptive due to long scheduling times and in-office wait times,” they said. writes the groups.