The Alliance Leads Almost 350 Stakeholders Urging for a Two Year Extension on DEA Telemedicine Flexibilities

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT

Krista Drobac; kdrobac@connectwithcare.org

Hundreds of Stakeholders Call on Federal Leaders to Ensure Patient Care is Not Interrupted by Expiring Prescribing Flexibilities

WASHINGTON, D.C. September 10, 2024 – Today, more than 300 organizations asked Congress and the White House to intervene to ensure ongoing access to virtual prescribing for patients and providers of certain controlled substances. Stakeholders anticipate that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will dramatically limit virtual prescribing, either through new regulations or by allowing the existing flexibilities to expire.

The letters to Senate and House leadership urge Congress to include, in the end-of-year legislative package, a two-year extension of prescribing flexibilities to allow for time to achieve a balance between patient access and diversion control. The letter to the White House urges Biden Administration leaders to ensure that the DEA preserves access to critically important health care treatment for patients by providing more time more time to work details out, specifically issuing another extension of prescribing flexibilities.

The letters also highlight that the flexibility has been essential in ensuring that patients receive timely and necessary care. Continuing these practices is vital to sustaining access to treatment and addressing the ongoing health care challenges, particularly in underserved areas.

“After 16 years of waiting for action by the DEA, more than 38,000 comments on a flawed rule, and news of a second flawed rule, the DEA has demonstrated it cannot balance health care access with diversion control. What Congress asked for was simple, establish a special registration process. We now we find ourselves out of time again, and in need of another extension to help get this right,” said Krista Drobac, founder, Alliance for Connected Care.

The Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008 requires the DEA, in conjunction with the Secretary of HHS, to promulgate permanent rules to allow practitioners to prescribe certain controlled medications via telehealth through a special registration pathway. As of today, the agency still had not done so. In the advent of the Public Health Emergency, the DEA allowed DEA-registered practitioners to issue prescriptions for certain controlled substances to patients via telemedicine without requiring an in-person medical evaluation. These flexibilities have been a lifeline for countless individuals across the country, ensuring uninterrupted access to essential mental health care, substance use treatment, end-of-life care, and many other crucial treatments during a time when in-person visits were impossible or unsafe.