What medicines / drugs can a physician keep in his clinic / office ?

Question

Is there any regulations in place to tell what can a physician keep in his office for use in his practice , do these regulations specifies what each specialty can keep ( ENT , ophthalmologist etc ..) ?

Answer 1

WWD has said it succinctly. It's a real pain to keep narcotics in the office, definitely not worth the trouble for most physicians. Pediatricians keep a lot of vaccines in the office, in a separate refrigerator/freezer with temperature monitor. As our practice grew, we kept these under lock and key.

Once an employee put her leftover lunch in the fridge (against CLIA and OSHA rules, I think, and contrary to our posted office policy) and left the door ajar overnight. We had to throw the lot out, about $35,000 worth. Fortunately we were covered by a rider on our insurance. Our insurance rates went up and the employee was terminated.

Answer 2

Drugs are not restricted by specialty, though it would be nuts to waste money on inventory you'd never use. Scheduled drugs have to be locked up and close records kept. Most doctors keep minimal or no stocks of narcotics because it's a pain in the rear and tempts the druggies, not because of legal restrictions.
Doctors know a lot more about drugs than most folks do, and there are two themes that come from that: (1) they worry a lot more about adverse effects and (2) there's little fascination about "the good stuff." While there are impaired physicians who use drugs, the mainstream doctor's drug of choice for recreational use is along the lines of single-malt scotch, and very little desire for diversion of prescription drugs.