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WASHINGTON — The Healthcare Distribution Alliance (HDA) released the following statement from President and CEO Chester “Chip” Davis Jr., regarding the enhanced controlled substance monitoring procedures as required by the opioid settlement:
Chip Davis
“Distributors understand that adjusting to the controlled substance monitoring procedures as required by the settlement may be challenging for pharmacies, providers and their patients. Accordingly, HDA members are working to educate their pharmacy customers about these enhanced approaches to minimize the potential for supply disruptions. As distributors diligently adhere to the requirements of the settlement, our industry also continues to work with the DEA to find the appropriate balance between ensuring patients have access to the medicines they need and preventing diversion.
“The DEA historically has provided only limited guidance on what constitutes a suspicious order. In absence of clear, industry-wide guidance, distributors have crafted their own programs to detect and report orders that are of unusual size, frequency or pattern. The modern version of these programs often involve the use of thresholds, and these threshold-based programs have been shared with DEA and subject to DEA audits for more than a decade. Notably, our industry awaits DEA’s final rule on suspicious orders, for which HDA submitted comments in January 2021.”
For more information, visit HDA’s website.
