DEA Immediate Suspension Order

Pills laid out on a blue table.

What is an Immediate Suspension Order?

An Immediate Suspension Order is usually served along with a DEA Order to Show Cause and allows the DEA to circumvent due process and restrict your registration pending a hearing. An Immediate Suspension Order allows DEA to suspend your registration upon a determination that there is an “imminent danger to the public health and safety.”

An Immediate Suspension Order is typically served alongside an Order to Show Cause, enabling you to challenge the DEA’s decision on revocation, but you will not be able to dispense controlled substances while your case is pending. As a result, an Immediate Suspension Order can significantly impact your ability to practice medicine, operate your business, and maintain your lifestyle.

If, after demonstrating your practice is not an imminent danger to the public health and safety, the DEA upholds the immediate suspension order, a registrant may have to seek injunctive relief in federal court.

Can I Fight an Immediate Suspension Order or Surrender?

This is a highly technical area of the law, but the answer is yes, and the healthcare attorneys at Chapman Law Group have assisted many registrants with this issue. 

Registrants whose DEA registrations are held up through immediate suspension orders or were revoked upon signing a voluntary surrender can seek to have the suspension dissolved or their registration reinstated by a judge in federal court. Seeking injunctive relief allows registrants to bypass the lengthy and expensive process of waiting for a new application to be approved and continue dispensing controlled substances if the court sides with the registrant’s case. 

This challenge involves a motion for injunctive relief upon which the registrant must meet four requirements for the court to prevent the DEA’s revocation of the registration:

      1. Likelihood of success on the merits
      2. Irreparable harm (loss of income is not enough to meet this standard)
      3. Harm to others, and the DEA, if the injunction were to be granted
      4. Whether public interest favors granting of the injunction

The DEA uses a variety of complex and exhausting means of revoking DEA registrations. It is important to be educated in each of the methods and ensure that competent and experienced legal counsel is by your side. Our DEA attorneys are experienced in defending DEA registrants both during DEA investigations and in subsequent DEA action if noncompliance with the Controlled Substances Act is found.

At Chapman Law Group, Our Lawyers Work to Keep Licensed Healthcare Professionals on the Right Side of the DEA

The healthcare criminal law attorneys at Chapman Law Group are dedicated to making sure healthcare providers and related entities, such as physicianspharmacists, pain management specialists, distributors, and other registrants, protect their DEA registration. Our lawyers have extensive experience in DEA Immediate Suspension Orders, as well as other DEA matters, such as drug trafficking, drug diversion, and DEA registration denial.

Chapman Law Group is a national health care defense and DEA matters law firm, with offices in Miami and Sarasota, Florida; Detroit, Michigan; and Los Angeles/Southern California. Contact us today.

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