Home Forums Discussions General Discussion eRx for controlled drugs

A letter from DEA arrived today, saying that eRx can be used for scheduled meds if the software meets DEA requirements. The requirements are quite onerous, in my opinion. The software maker must provide a "certificate", stating the software is compliant and secure. Two credentialing factors have to be provided by the prescriber, such as a "token" or "biometric data" (WTF!). Blah, blah, blah, blah...

This is from the same agency that is doing such a great job interdicting drugs entering our borders. They have decided to treat physicians and pharmacists as if our offices are small scale drug cartels.

I guess the theory is that if you're impotent in important areas, you can make up for it by being a swaggering bully in unimportant ones.

Q. May a practitioner use his/her own digital certificate to sign an electronic controlled substance prescription?
Actually, the following if I understand it correctly, seems doable. I am not sure where the certificate would reside, etc. Of course, there would need to be more changes to the software in order to use it.

A. Yes, the interim final rule allows any practitioner to use his/her own digital certificate to sign electronic prescriptions for controlled substances. If the practitioner and his/her application provider wish to do so, the two-factor authentication credential can be a digital certificate specific to the practitioner that the practitioner obtains from a certification authority that is cross-certified with the Federal Bridge Certification Authority at the basic assurance level.

uh-huh. so. If you sign up for an Adobe digital signature will that work?