After a long anticipated wait, the DEA is revising its regulations to provide prescribers the ability to electronically prescribe controlled substances.
On June 27, 2008, DEA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to revise the regulation to allow creation, signature, transmission and processing of controlled substances electronically. The DEA gave consideration to over 200 comments while drafting the IFR.
The DEA’s obligation as noted in the rule, is to ensure that the regulations minimize, to the greatest extent possible, the potential for diversion of a controlled substance resulting from non-registrants gaining access to electronic prescribing applications and systems. The concern of insufficient Security has been the main barrier to allowing the ePrescription of controlled substances. The authentication methods used in online or desktop applications is generally username and password. Passwords are easily guessed or broken by using various password guessing programs.
