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Indiana News: Physician Assistants May Prescribe
Published in the August 2007 Indiana Board of Pharmacy Newsletter
The next prescription you receive may be from a physician assistant (PA). The new law authorizes a physician to delegate to a PA duties that are within the supervising physician’s scope of practice, including prescribing and dispensing certain drugs and medical devices. The statute requires that a supervising physician must be either: (a) physically present at the location where services are performed by the PA; or (b) either immediately available for consultation and in the county, or a contiguous county of the location where the services are being rendered, or at a hospital or health facility. The statute also requires the supervisory agreement between the physician and the PA to include certain information and be approved by the medical licensing board (MLB).
This legislation that provides prescriptive authority for PAs went into effect July 1, 2007; however, there are certain requirements that must be met before PAs are permitted to prescribe including the following: (a) a PA must have been employed as a PA for one year (1,800 hours) and participated in 30 contact hours of pharmacology at an approved school; (b) a PA may not begin prescribing until the Supervisory Agreement/Job Description is submitted to the Committee and approved by the MLB; (c) in order to prescribe controlled substances to the extent permitted by the Act, a PA must obtain both a state Controlled Substance Registration and a federal Drug Enforcement Administration permit.
