Drug Enforcement Administration

Most practitioners and businesses that handle controlled substances are required to hold a controlled substances registration with the Drug Enforcement Administration. This includes physicians, pharmacies, dentists, hospitals, manufacturers, reverse-distributors, nurse practitioners, and virtually everyone else who possesses, prescribes, manufactures, or dispenses controlled substances.  Depending on the state, the practitioner or entity may also be required

Some notable legislation came out of the 84th Legislative Session, at least as it relates to the practice of medicine in the state, and specifically the state’s efforts to fight prescription abuse. Senate Bill 195, passed in the most recent legislative session, serves up some significant changes to the Department of Public Safety’s (DPS)

Given the Texas Medical Board’s increasing use of temporary suspension hearings it would be helpful to understand  what repercussions those hearings entail. As we shall see, a temporary suspension not only affects a physician’s medical license it may also affect his Medicare billing privileges and DEA controlled substances registration. A temporary suspension hearing may have been preceded

Given the current aggressive regulatory climate surrounding the treatment of chronic pain, it is worthwhile to look back and understand how the applicable law developed prior to the Legislature’s empowerment of the Texas Medical Board to oversee registered pain clinics in 2011. This prior law, including the Intractable Pain Treatment Act, was designed to safeguard physicians who treat chronic pain while remaining within the standard of care. It has been my experience as an attorney representing numerous physicians, mid-level providers, and pharmacies, that this prior law has largely been either forgotten or eroded to the point it no longer provides real protection to medical professionals.

The Intractable Pain Treatment Act (IPTA),  separate from the Medical Practice Act, is codified at Chapter 107, Texas Occupation Code, and was intended to provide physicians with a safe harbor in prescribing controlled substances and dangerous drugs to treat pain. In this post we provide a background of this Act and its current relevance, or lack thereof, in the practice of medicine. 

The Intractable Pain Treatment Act was passed in 1989 to deal with the problem that physicians were being disciplined by the Texas Medical Board because the Board refused to distinguish habitual users of narcotic drugs from patients with genuine medical needs. Prior to the passage of the IPTA, the Medical Practice Act allowed the Texas Medical Board, known at that time as the Texas Board of Medical Examiners, to discipline physicians for prescribing controlled substances or dangerous drugs to a person "known to be habitual users of narcotic drugs, controlled substances, or dangerous drugs or to a person who the physician should have known was a habitual user of the drugs." This phrasing of the Medical Practice Act made patients taking opioids to alleviate genuine suffering "habitual users." Accordingly, physicians prescribing pain medication to cancer patients were subject to disciplinary action by the Board. Such was the effect that physicians refused to prescribe these therapeutic drugs and hospitals refused to let physicians prescribe them on the premises. 

The Intractable Pain Act of 1989 sought to rectify this basic problem by protecting physicians from Texas Medical Board discipline if they prescribed the medication for "intractable pain."   Intractable pain is defined as pain the cause of which cannot be removed, treated, or cured. The IPTA also prohibited hospitals from restricting credentialed physicians from prescribing pain medications for intractable pain. 

In 1993 the Legislature modified the Medical Practice Act to prohibit doctors from prescribing to a person who was a known "abuser" of controlled medications. In 1996 the Legislature amended the Intractable Pain Act to allow physicians to prescribe controlled medication even to such abusers as long as the medication was strictly for the management of their diagnosed pain which the physician had a duty to monitor. The physician was also required to document the understanding between the doctor and the patient and to consult with an addiction specialist as appropriate. These restrictions were only required when dealing with patients who were drug abusers or had a history of drug abuse. 

In its final form the IPTA was meant to provide a safe harbor for Texas doctors who treated long-term pain provided the controlled medications they prescribed were actually for an underlying pain condition. This safe harbor protects physicians who treat known drug abusers for intractable pain provided they monitor the patient and consult with the appropriate mental health expert. Yet the protections of the safe harbor are slight; by the Act’s own terms, the Texas Medical Board can still discipline physicians if they prescribe non-therapeutically or prescribe in a manner inconsistent with the public welfare.  

The safe harbor provision provided by the Intractable Pain Treatment Act has been recognized, albeit modified, by the Board in its pain management rules codified at Chapter 170, Title 22 Texas Administrative Code. The rules recognize that pain treatment is a vital and integral part of the practice of medicine and that doctors should be able to treat pain using sound clinical judgment without the fear of disciplinary action from the Texas Medical Board. Yet, the rules go on to list several actions that should be involved in the treatment of chronic pain including the formulation of a pain management contract requiring random drug screening.

From the rules it is apparent that whereas the Intractable Pain Treatment Act required heightened monitoring and more rigorous documentation merely for known drug abusers, the Board’s most recent rules make that standard applicable to all long-term pain management patients. While the rules do call themselves "guidelines" it should be noted that the Texas Medical Board will allow deviation from the guidelines only if the physician’s rational for treatment indicates sound clinical judgment documented in the medical records.Continue Reading The Texas Intractable Pain Treatment Act And Chronic Pain

As we reported earlier this month, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) along with several state agencies, including the Texas Medical Board (TMB) and Texas State Board of Pharmacy (TSBP), has been increasingly active in Houston over the past few months. More than ever before, the joint state and federal taskforce has taken a scorched earth

Over the past month, the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration has drastically increased their activity in the Houston area. This includes a dramatic upswing in the number of unannounced raids targeting pain management physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioner, and pharmacies. At this juncture, most every pain management clinic and pharmacy in the Houston should be

Several months ago I began a series of posts focused on the combined State and Federal taskforce sweeping the Houston metropolitan area targeting physicians and pharmacists viewed as engaged in the non-therapeutic prescribing and dispensing of narcotics, particularly for the treatment of pain. This process continues to develop and generate new sets of licensees’

Over the past several weeks there has been an onslaught of temporary suspensions by the Texas Medical Board and Texas State Board of Pharmacy targeting Houston area physicians and pharmacists. These emergency suspensions have all stemmed from the joint state and federal task force combing Harris County for the non-therapeutic prescribing and dispensing of

Over the last few years substantial momentum has been steadily building on both the administrative and criminal fronts against physicians whose practice primarily or substantially involves pain management and the pharmacists who file their prescriptions. In many instances, this governmental clamp down is fully justified as every pharmacist and physician familiar with this practice