What is the DEA special registration for telemedicine?
General educational information, not medical or legal advice. For questions about your own treatment, talk with your own clinician.
It's a new kind of DEA registration, proposed on January 17, 2025, that would let clinicians prescribe controlled substances by telemedicine without ever seeing the patient in person, as long as they follow extra rules (Federal Register; DEA).
The proposal had three types:
- Telemedicine Prescribing Registration: Schedules III–V.
- Advanced Telemedicine Prescribing Registration: Schedules II–V, which includes most ADHD stimulants. Limited to certain board-certified specialties, such as psychiatrists and pediatricians.
- Telemedicine Platform Registration: for certain online platforms.
Clinicians would also need a DEA-issued state telemedicine registration for each state where their patients are located. The DEA asked for comment on requiring the prescriber and patient to be in the same state, and on capping telemedicine at under 50% of a prescriber's monthly Schedule II prescriptions.
Status: a final rule (RIN 1117-AB40) reached White House review on Aug 25, 2026 (reginfo.gov). The final text isn't public and may differ from the proposal. Final action has been reported as targeted for November 2026 UNCONFIRMED.
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