Senate Judiciary Committee Holds Hearing on ePrescribing

December 10, 2007

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Senator Tom Colburn (R-OK) held a hearing on December 4th focusing on the current challenges surrounding the development and adoption of regulations to permit the electronic prescribing of controlled substances.

Currently, providers utilizing ePrescribing systems in America are unable to use these systems when prescribing Schedule II controlled substances to their patients.  These controlled substances include some widely used pain medications such as Vicodin and Oxycotin.  Many view the exemption of these types of drugs as a major inhibitor to the widespread adoption of ePrescribing systems by healthcare providers because providers cannot shift all prescribing into a single ePrescribing system - they must maintain paper processes for controlled substances. 

Currently, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is responsible for developing and implementing regulations needed to allow these drugs to be included in ePrescribing systems.  As such, Deputy Assistant Administrator of the DEA, Joseph T. Rannazzisi was asked to testify during last week's hearing.

Senators Whitehouse and Colburn intensely questioned Rannazzisi about why the DEA had not developed these regulations.  Whitehouse stressed that by including controlled substances in the ePrescribing systems, not only would costs continue to go down as adoption and implementation of ePrescribing systems goes up, but from a law enforcement perspective, misuse of these substances would be easier to trace.

eHealth Initiative Board Member Kevin Hutchinson, Chief Executive Officer of SureScripts, testified at the hearing along with Tony Trenkle, Director of the Office of E-Health Standards and Services of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Trenkle will be joining the eHealth Initiative Policy Working Group meeting on Tuesday, December 11, 2007, along with Paul Uhrig from SureScripts).  CMS has demonstrated a desire to see controlled substances included in ePrescribing systems, as it is forecasted to save the Medicare and Medicaid programs significant amounts of dollars in extraneous transaction and adverse drug interaction costs.

In response to a request by Senator Whitehouse, Rannazzisis promised to submit a timeline within 60 days which would outline when the DEA will develop the necessary regulations to allow the inclusion of controlled substances into ePrescribing systems.

To read the complete testimony from both hearing panels, click here.