Controlled substances often end up in the wrong hands leading to abuse and misuse. With the authorities are keeping a strict vigil for diversion, maintaining compliance requires professional assistance.
Drug diversion is a harsh reality of American healthcare. The misuse and illegal trafficking of legally prescribed controlled substances like anabolic steroids, depressants, hallucinogens, opioids and other stimulants is damaging health and claiming lives all around. It poses major health and safety concerns for patients and care workers as well.
This has been a front-running issue for years despite the constant monitoring and crackdown on deflection of prescription drugs by diversion DEA and other federal departments apart from law enforcement agencies. It follows that every DEA registrant – be it a physician, veterinarian, scientific investigator, pharmacy or hospital – is being monitored on a regular basis.
Given the ease of access for healthcare workers and staff working in the registered facility, the possibility of diversion hangs like a sword of Damocles over every head that holds a DEA license for controlled substances! In fact, it can happen at any stage from procurement or storage to prescription, dispensing or administration to even return or disposal.The most common types of drug diversion are:
- Illicit prescribing
- Prescription pad theft and forgery
- Selling prescription drugs
- Drug theft
- Doctor shopping
- Illegal internet pharmacies
Staying in complete compliance is an extremely tough proposition given the myriad rules and regulations in force. And should even the slightest lapse in reporting and monitoring norms come to light, the consequences can be terminal.
What to do?
Exercising caution is not enough here. The facility has to have a robust drug diversion deterrent strategy in place. The three key pillars of such a program are compliance, prevention and monitoring. Such a multi-layered approach will reduce the threat of drug diversion by ensuring that all operations are above board.
The staggering prospect of navigating through the never-ending maze of rules, regulations, audits and inspections becomes manageable with the assistance of a DEA compliance professional. The consultant will study the procedures before aligning a strategy that harmonizes the operations in terms of registration, recordkeeping and reporting along with tackling the monitoring and prevention aspects of controlled substances. The constant tracking and reviewing itself will become an effective deterrent for potential diverters, thus nipping diversion attempts in the bud. And should anything untoward actually happen, it can be easily detected and reported to the appropriate authorities. This will keep the facility in the clear at all times.
The services of a DEA compliance consultant – say from Titan Group (https://titangroupdea.com/) - cover the gamut of due diligence for full compliance. They will analyze the facility, make appropriate suggestions, train the staff, conduct compliance audits and even run mock inspections to ensure that everything is prepped and compliant. They will also develop appropriate protocols and strategic organizational procedures for quality assurance, accountability, monitoring and more. With this kind of a streamlined approach, conforming with compliance becomes a matter of course while keeping drug diversion at arm’s length at all times!
