Efrem Grail, along with his co-presenter, Ericka Adler, offered a special session at the American Society for Addiction Medicine’s Annual Meeting last week: “The New Enforcement Environment: How to Keep Your License & Avoid Indictment.” 

The Department’s recent establishment of 12 Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Units under former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions unfairly targets opioid prescribers, they said. U.S. attorney’s offices, along with federal agencies, state medical boards and state attorneys general, have focused on prescribers of buprenorphine and other medications to treat opioid use disorder in their efforts to detect and prosecute prescribers.

During the session, both Grail and Adler shared advice on how to stay on the right side of the law, survive a law enforcement investigation and avoid being targeted by an investigation in the first place.

“’Best practices include reasonable compliance procedures and ongoing education that puts patients and physicians on clear notice of what the law requires,” ASAM wrote in their coverage of Grail’s and Adler’s session. “Noncompliance by a physician literally puts his or her medical license on the line,” they said.

You can read the full coverage of the session at the American Society for Addiction Medicine’s Annual Meeting on Sunday, April 7, 2019 here.