CDA recently hosted a webinar with its Endorsed Services partner iCoreConnect to help dentists understand the process of transitioning from written and phoned-in prescriptions to electronic prescriptions by the state's Jan. 1 deadline. Here CDA answers questions members submitted during the webinar. 
 

Along with the benefit of compliance with state regulations to prevent controlled-substance abuse, ePrescribing can improve clinical care and efficiency.

A new year means updated regulations for California dentists to follow. It also means guidance and new resources from CDA. Members are invited to take CDA's newest Practice Health Check to gauge their compliance with regulations as the new year begins.

Most practices benefit from electronic prescribing, but it’s important to make sure that the solution you use to e-prescribe has features that will streamline your workflow and protect your patients and practice from error. Find out which e-prescription software characteristics are most valued by dentists.

The Department of Justice on April 2 announced that California’s Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System, also known as CURES 2.0, is ready for statewide use and that mandatory CURES consultation becomes effective Oct. 2, 2018. Beginning on this date, prescribers must check a patient’s prescription history in CURES 2.0 before prescribing a Schedule II-IV substance, with some exceptions.

Beginning Oct. 2, all licensees authorized to prescribe, order, administer, furnish or dispense controlled substances in California must, with some exceptions, check a patient’s prescription history in CURES 2.0 before prescribing a Schedule II-IV substance, as CDA first reported in April. One notable exemption to mandatory CURES consultation that applies to dental care and that CDA helped secure is summarized here.

Many bills were introduced over the past year to combat the opioid epidemic in California, as CDA previously reported. Here is an overview of CDA-supported legislation in the areas of e-prescribing, informed consent, interstate data sharing and prescription-pad requirements, that Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law in September and how these bills will affect the practice of dentistry.

California-licensed pharmacists, dentists and others who dispense controlled substances must follow revised reporting requirements beginning Jan. 1, 2022. Those requirements are different than the requirements for prescribing or administering controlled substances.

A dentist who writes controlled substance prescriptions can now review CURES (Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System) for patients for whom the dentist is listed as a prescriber. This ability to review the list is useful when a dentist has misplaced a prescription pad or has had a prescription pad stolen or when a dentist suspects someone is misusing their DEA number.