The 4 Ps of Controlled Substance Problem Prevention

Peter Weinstein, DVM, MBA

Dr Peter Weinstein is a husband, father, pet parent, veterinarian and leader He has been involved with virtually all aspects of veterinary practice from a 15 year old kennel kid to a hospital owner. Organized veterinary medicine has been a passion as well with various roles and leadership and presidencies of Southern California VMA, California VMA, and Vet Partners. He is a published author, most notably of the EMyth Veterinarian-Why Most Veterinary Practices Don’t Work and What to Do About It. Currently, among other things, he is teaching business and finance at the Veterinary College of Western University of Health Sciences. He likes to think of himself as a free thinking change agent and disruptor who, because he has a daughter in veterinary school, is working for an even better veterinary profession in the future.

Kelley Detweiler

Kelley Detweiler is a DEA controlled substance and regulatory compliance expert who provides solutions and services to public and private entities in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, supply chain and veterinary industries. She is the Founder of DEA360 and Kolibry, national compliance firms comprised of retired government agents, investigators, and security experts that assist companies operating with controlled substances and regulated chemicals, as well as a Partner in Simple Solutions 4 Vets with Dr. Peter Weinstein, a corporation focused on helping veterinary professionals implement proactive solutions to meet DEA and state regulatory compliance requirements.

Kelley’s work in the veterinary industry includes having inspected, audited, and remediated over 700 veterinary facilities in North America (including Canada). She is a RACE-approved instructor and CE broker, the coauthor of “Safeguarding Controlled Substances” published by AAHA, a faculty author/speaker for DVM 360 and author for Today’s Veterinary Business where her column, “Let’s Talk Drugs” is featured.

Internationally, Kelley addresses controlled substance and regulatory issues on a global level and has been a featured speaker at the United Nations in addition to serving as a subject matter expert for Bloomberg News.

Overview:

In healthcare, prevention is a lot easier than treatment. The same goes for compliance. There are four Ps that you can focus on when it comes to controlled substance problem prevention: People, Products, Processes and Paperwork. We will look a DEA requirements are both confusing and overwhelming. As a veterinary professional, these rules can be even more difficult to navigate because the Controlled Substance Act and Code of Federal Regulations do not offer specific guidance for veterinary practitioners. As a result, there has been an overall lack of understanding regarding controlled substance regulations throughout the veterinary industry and a lack of clarity concerning how to ensure adherence to a myriad of DEA requirements your credentials are tied to each of these and share actions that you can put into your practice to ‘prevent’ problems.

Learning Objectives:

The “4 Ps of Controlled Substance Protection” is a webinar designed to address foundational questions and concerns veterinarians professionals have when it comes to DEA compliance, which have been divided into the following four areas:

1. People: The individuals handling controlled substances in your practice. The DEA registrant is the most important person in this regard, but it doesn’t stop there. Preventing controlled substance compliance issues in your practice means you must be sure that the individuals ordering, managing, administering, prescribing, dispensing and wasting them have been properly vetted, documented and trained. How well do you know the people working for you?

2. Product: The controlled substances in your practice. Do you know the DEA schedule for the controlled substances used in your practice and the requirements for each? Are you properly storing and securing them? Do you know which controlled substances have the highest rate of diversion?

3. Paperwork: The controlled substance documentation and records in your practice. Poor recordkeeping is one of the top DEA violations for a reason. Working with controlled substances requires ongoing, meticulous recordkeeping, which can be hard in a busy environment. Your paperwork must properly document the lifecycle of each controlled substance from the point of acquisition to administration, dispensing or disposition (disposal). Do your controlled substance records tell that story?

4. Processes: The procedures for managing controlled substances in your practice. If processes and procedures are not in place to guide personnel in the proper management and use of controlled substances, problems are likely to arise. Having the right processes implemented and making sure people are trained on them is key to preventing controlled substance problems within your practice.

This course is RACE-approved for 1.0 continuing education credits hours in jurisdictions that accept RACE-approval.