Credentialing Impacts from Surrendering Your DEA Registration

Our healthcare and business law firm represents healthcare practitioners, including physicians, advance practice registered nurses, and physician assistants, with licensing and credentialing matters.  One occurrence we see often is a practitioner who signed DEA Form 104 to “voluntarily” surrendered their DEA registration and is now dealing with unexpected consequences of that decision.  Often, the surrender is obtained by a DEA agent during a time of severe duress of the provider-registrant.  We strongly recommend discussing with healthcare counsel before surrendering a license or registration.  Because of the amount of credentialing and licenses medical providers have, surrendering any sort of license or registration typically creates a snowball effect into numerous areas of the provider’s practice.  This post discusses specific credentialing impacts that may apply to a provider after the surrender of a DEA registration.  If you would like to discuss your options before voluntarily surrendering a license or registration or ideas to mitigate negative effects after voluntarily surrendering a license or registration, you may contact our healthcare and business law firm at (404) 685-1662 (Atlanta) or (706) 722-7886 (Augusta), or by email, info@littlehealthlaw.com. You may also learn more about our law firm by visiting www.littlehealthlaw.com.

Following the surrender of a DEA license, the registrant should immediately do two things:

1. Cease prescribing controlled substances, and
2. Determine to whom the provider must report the change in their DEA registration status.

Entities and agencies with whom a provider is credentialed likely require the provider to maintain a DEA registration and thus to report when the provider no longer has a DEA number.  Credentialing with government and commercial payors and hospitals is an involved process that typically requires that a provider be able to practice without limitation, both in providing care and prescribing.

As to government payors, such as Medicare, a provider no longer having a DEA registration is a change in enrollment that must be reported.  Failure to report can cause additional adverse effects.

As to commercial payors, surrendering your DEA registration is likely something the payor requires you to report.  When credentialing, the provider almost certainly had to attest that they have never been and are not the subject of an investigation or adverse action by a state or federal agency regarding the provider’s prescription of controlled substances.  The DEA investigation and ultimate surrender will require responding “yes” to this attestation, and the provider should determine how and when to provide the updated information.  If a provider uses a third-party service, like CAQH, to assist in credentialing with multiple insurers, that service likely has a frequent re-attestation process (like every 120 days) at which point the provider will have to re-attest to the required disclosures, however, there may be an ongoing duty to update the provider’s attestations within a short period of the surrender.

As to hospital credentialing, if a provider has privileges at a hospital, the credentialing requirements likely include that the provider must maintain an active and unrestricted DEA number.  The provider should consult the hospital’s requirements to determine when and how to report the DEA surrender.  The medical staff bylaws likely include this information and may require the provider to report the surrender to specific individuals, such as the CEO and/or Chief of Staff, within a short period of time (some say 7 days).  The hospital will promptly learn about the change in DEA status because the surrender will be reported to the National Practitioner Data Bank (“NPDB”), at which point, the hospital will likely start an investigation.

If you would like to discuss your options before voluntarily surrendering a license or registration or ideas to mitigate negative effects after voluntarily surrendering a license or registration, you may contact our healthcare and business law firm at (404) 685-1662 (Atlanta) or (706) 722-7886 (Augusta), or by email, info@littlehealthlaw.com. You may also learn more about our law firm by visiting www.littlehealthlaw.com.

 

 

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