The State Medical Board of Ohio (SMBO) adopted two rules addressing physician assistant (PA) prescribing practice which went into effect on November 30.
Rule 4730-2-04 Period of on-site supervision of physician-delegated prescriptive authority. This rule replaces the old “provisional period of physician-delegated prescriptive authority” rule, as statutory changes did away with the “provisional period,” but now requires a period of on-site supervision upon the initial issuance of the PA’s valid prescriber number.
The rule clarifies the expectations for conducting the required period of on-site supervision of the PA’s prescribing, without explicitly dictating the specific actions to be taken. The language is in response to the numerous inquiries received concerning how the hours should be tracked and whether the documentation must be submitted to the SMBO. The rule also recognizes that when there are multiple supervising physicians they might designate one of them to be the “primary” and that it is possible that serial supervisory relationships may be required in order to complete the required number of hours.
4730-2-05 Addition of valid prescriber number after initial licensure. The is a new rule to replace the former “certificate to prescribe,” rule which is no longer applicable because statutory changes did away with the certificate to prescribe. The rule reflects current statutory language.
The rule clarifies the application procedure by which a PA who did not receive a valid prescriber number as part of the issuance of the PA license may apply for the addition of a valid prescriber number. In the SMBO’s licensure system, the valid prescriber number acts as an endorsement to the PA license number. A PA must have a valid prescriber number in order to be authorized to prescribe or order any prescription drug.