Feds seek to limit some drugs via telehealth prescription
WASHINGTON
The Biden administration moved Friday to require patients see a doctor in person before getting attention deficit disorder medication or addictive painkillers, toughening access to the drugs against the backdrop of a deepening opioid crisis.
The proposal could overhaul the way millions of Americans get some prescriptions after three years of relying on telehealth for doctor’s appointments by computer or phone during the pandemic.
The Drug Enforcement Administration said late Friday it plans to reinstate once longstanding federal requirements for powerful drugs that were waived once COVID-19 hit, enabling doctors to write millions of prescriptions for drugs such as OxyContin or Adderall without ever meeting patients in person.
Patients will need to see a doctor in person at least once to get an initial prescription for drugs that the federal government says have the the most potential to be abused — Vicodin, OxyContin, Adderall and Ritalin, for example. Refills could be prescribed over telehealth appointments.
The agency will also clamp down on how doctors can prescribe other, less addictive drugs to patients they’ve never physically met. Substances like codeine, taken to alleviate pain or coughing, Xanax, used to treat anxiety, Ambien, a sleep aid, and buprenorphine, a narcotic used to treat opioid addiction, can be prescribed over telehealth for an initial 30-day dose. Patients would need to see a doctor at least once in person to get a refill.
Patients will still be able to get common prescriptions like antibiotics, skin creams, birth control and insulin prescribed through telehealth visits.
The new rule seeks to keep expanded access to telehealth that’s important for patients like those in rural areas while also balancing safety, an approach DEA Administrator Anne Milgram referred to as “expansion of telemedicine with guardrails.”
The ease with each Americans have accessed certain medications during the pandemic has helped many get needed treatment, but concerns have also mounted that some companies may take advantage of the lax rules and be overprescribing medications to people who don’t need them, said David Herzberg, a historian of drugs at the University of Buffalo.
“Both sides of this tension have really good points,” said Herzberg. “You don’t want barriers in the way of getting people prescriptions they need.
But anytime you remove those barriers it’s also an opportunity for profit seekers to exploit the lax rules and sell the medicines to people who may not need them.”
U.S. overdose deaths hit a record in 2021, about three-quarters of those from opioids during a crisis that was first spun into the making by drug makers, pharmacies and doctors that pushed the drugs to patients decades ago. But the grim toll from synthetic opioids like fentanyl far outstripped deaths related to prescription drugs that year, according to Centers for Disease Control Data. Fentanyl is increasingly appearing on the illicit market, pressed into fake prescription pills or mixed into other drugs.
Many states have already moved to restore limitations for telehealth care across state lines.
Vero Beach, Florida Lowry was born June 1, 1938 in Miami Beach, FL to Marybelle and Frank Smathers Jr. The eldest of four sisters, Pamela, Ann, and Lura. Lowry was a member of one of the pioneer families of Miami. Lowry graduated from Mount Vernon Seminary in Washington, DC and attended both the University of Florida and the University of Miami. She was also an active Member of the Junior League of Miami. Lowry moved her family to Vero Beach in 1980 where she lived to her final days by the
Miami, Florida - Leonor Claudina Hernandez, 89, died on February 21, 2023 in Miami, Florida. Leonor was born in Havana, Cuba in 1933, to Eugenio Cabrera and Maria Martinez Alvarez and first immigrated to the United States in 1953, with her late husband Joaquin Luis Hernandez. She was a beautiful and dynamic woman who worked tenaciously for over 50 years to build a life for herself and her family, having become a widow when she was 38 years old. She was a devoted mother, grandmother, aunt, and great grandmother who graced our lives with her affection, her style, her indelible wit, determination, and leaves all of us with cherished memories for years to come.
In addition to her parents and her husband, she was predeceased by her beloved sisters and brothers-in-law Margarita and Manuel Gans, and Carmen and Jose R. Armas.
Devoted and caring survivors