DEA Pressured to Create a Telehealth Registration for Drug Abuse Treatment
More than 80 organizations have signed a new letter asking federal officials to create a special registration so that qualifying providers can use telehealth to prescribe medications for substance abuse treatment.
Telehealth advocates are once again putting pressure on the US Drug Enforcement Agency to finalize a special registration process so that care providers can use telemedicine to prescribe certain medications for substance abuse treatment.
More than 80 organizations, ranging from telehealth health providers and health systems to the American Telemedicine Association and America’s Health Insurance Plans, have signed a letter asking Acting DEA Administrator Timothy Shea to create the registration process mandated in the Ryan Haight Act of 2008 and the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for Patients and Communities Act of 2018.
The Ryan Haight Act laid the groundwork – reinforced by the SUPPORT Act – for a special registration that would allow providers to prescribe, deliver, distribute and dispense a controlled substance to patients without the requirement for an in-person examination. The idea behind the registration is to allow providers to use connected health platforms – including MAT therapy therapy – to treat patients living with substance abuse issue who might not have easy access to in-person treatment.
Author: Eric Wicklund
Published online: 10.26.2020