Law: Requiring Patient Identification Before Dispensing

What are Identification Requirement Laws?

Laws that require patients to provide identification prior to filling a controlled substance are designed to prevent prescription fraud and diversion by ensuring persons obtaining a prescription are who they claim to be. CDC included a law in this resource if it requires a person to identify himself or herself or requires or permits a pharmacist to request identification prior to dispensing a controlled substance. This might occur at the discretion of the pharmacist or in certain circumstances, e.g., the person has similar prescriptions from multiple practitioners or the prescription was written in another state, or the prescription was not covered at least in part by a health plan. 

Among the laws requiring identification prior to dispensing, CDC identified a subset requiring that a pharmacy submit a patient’s “identification number” to the state prescription drug monitoring program. “Identification number” is defined as the unique number contained in the state-issued valid driver’s license of the recipient and/or the person for whom the drug is intended, a valid military identification card, a valid identification card issued by the bureau of motor vehicles, or an assigned unique identification number that could be linked to other personal identifiers.

States with Laws Requiring Patient Identification before Dispensing

22 States: Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia

Features of Identification Requirement Laws by State

Features	Aspects of Feature	States
Circumstances under which identification (ID) is required before dispensing	All controlled substances	DE, MA
	If person is unknown to pharmacist	CT, HI, ID, LA, MA, MI, MN, NV, NM, NY, OK, SC, TX, VA
	At the discretion of the pharmacist (includes statutes that require an ID, but only to the extent that the pharmacist is satisfied)	FL, ME, NC, OR, VA
	When certain criteria are present (e.g., patient pays in cash, patient has prescriptions for the same or similar controlled substance from more than one practitioner)	FL, NV, VA, WV
	For out-of-state prescriptions	DE, ME
	If prescription is not covered at least in part by a health plan	ID, MN, NV
Types of ID required	Photo ID	CT, DE, FL, HI, ID, LA, ME, MI, MN, NV, NM, NC, SC, VA, WV
	"Positive" or "appropriate" (or similar language) documents/ID	MI, NY, NC, OK, VA
	Government ID	DE, HI, ID, ME, MA, MI, NV, NM, NC, OK, SC, VA, WV
If person filling prescription does not have ID, pharmacist may still dispense if	Pharmacist can confirm ID and/or the validity of the prescription by other means	FL, HI
	Pharmacist determines that a detriment to patient will result otherwise	MA, MI, TX
Documentation requirements for the pharmacist	Must record "unique number" and/or ID source	DE, HI, ID, MA, NV, SC
	Obtain photocopy of ID	FL, HI, ID, NV, VA
	Capture patient’s signature	HI, ID
	Record in specific location	DE, FL, HI, NV, SC
Unique ID number must be reported to electronic database	N/A	CT, HI, IN, KY, MA, OK