Hey guys, I finally got my DEA license in CA and I am a bit confused on the laws of requiring physicians to keep a copy of all scripts they write. Our ER residency has us split our time between a county hospital and a tertiary care center. At the county hospital all of the attendings use script pads with carbon copies of each script and one of the guys high on the chain was saying that there was a recent law passed that ALL physicians must keep a copy of every schedule II drug prescription and have it just in case there is an "audit" type thing from the medical board.

Then when I am working in the tertiary care ER everyone uses script pads with no carbon copies and no copies of any scripts are kept. When I told the attending at the county hospital about this he was in shock and said the other hospital is breaking the law.

Does anybody know what the TRUTH is and/or where there is a link to the exact (current) law on record keeping for schdule II drugs? Thanks!

Joe

I haven't prescribed in CA in over a year, but when I was there the rules were that in order to prescribe a schedule II drug for an outpatient you had to use a special triplicate prescription pad issued to you by the DEA (either the DEA or the CA state equivalent - don't remember which). You have to specifically order it, and any records of meds that you prescribe with it get saved for potential future auditing. It was my understanding that CA outpatient pharmacies are not allowed to fill schedule II scripts if they are not on triplicates.

There are a few exceptions to this rule -- for example, at the VA you don't need triplicates. Instead you use a special prescription pad issued to you by the VA for schedule II meds, and carbon copies are not kept. These scripts are only accepted at VA outpatient pharmacies. I think the VA gets away with this because they are under federal and not state prescription laws.

I never even ordered triplicates when I was in CA, and neither did many IM and ED physicians that I worked with. It's a good way to avoid attracting drug-seeking patients, because I could simply tell them that I could not legally prescribe them a narcotic as an outpatient (at least not one that's stronger than vicodin). On the rare occasion that I would have a patient who really did need narcs as an outpatient, I could usually find an attending who would write for the script on a triplicate.

Oh - and sorry, I don't know the link to this law....