Those waiting anxiously for the rules expanding the prescribing of buprenorphine via telemedicine and the controlled substance prescribing for patients at the Department of Veterans Affairs to officially go into effect will now have to wait until New Year’s Eve—December 31, 2025.

Practitioners will, however, be allowed to continue prescribing via telemedicine without first having an in-person visit with the patient, owing to COVID-19 Telemedicine Flexibilities for Prescription of Controlled Medications, in effect through the same end-of-year date.

A seven-page document released by the Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DOJ, DEA) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on March 24—further delays the effective dates of the “Expansion of Buprenorphine Treatment via Telemedicine Encounter” Final Rule and the “Continuity of Care for Veterans Affairs Patients” Final Rule, both dated January 17, 2025 .

As we alerted you in February, these same two rules, collectively referred to as the “Buprenorphine and VA Telemedicine Prescribing Rules,” were originally scheduled to become final on February 18, 2025 but were delayed until March 21, 2025.

The first delay stemmed from the January 20, 2025, Presidential Memorandum titled “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” (the “Freeze Memo”) that empowered federal departments and agencies to “consider postponing” the dates of rules published but not yet in effect.

After reviewing the 32 comments that the first delay generated, the DOJ now “wishes to further postpone the effective dates for the purpose of further reviewing any questions of fact, law, and policy that the rules may raise,” despite the fact that 13 of the 32 commenters wished to finalize the effective date of the two rules as soon as possible.

The Rules

The Buprenorphine and VA Telemedicine Prescribing Rules amended previous regulations to expand the circumstances under which:

1. practitioners registered by DEA are authorized to prescribe schedule III-V controlled substances approved by the FDA for treatment of opioid use disorder via a telemedicine encounter; and
2. VA practitioners acting within the scope of their VA employment are authorized to prescribe schedule II-IV controlled substances via telemedicine to a VA patient with whom they have not conducted an in-person medical evaluation, if another VA practitioner has, at any time, previously conducted an in-person medical evaluation of the VA patient, subject to conditions.

The EBG team continues to monitor any changes to the Buprenorphine and VA Telemedicine Prescribing Rules.

Additional Author: David Shillcutt