MeridianMERIDIAN

DEA Number

identity.medical.dea_number

Drug Enforcement Administration registration number for US prescribers. Format: 2 letters followed by 7 digits. First letter indicates registrant type (A/B/F/M for practitioners, P/R for distributors). Check digit is last digit, computed via weighted sum of odd and even position digits.

Casts to
VARCHAR
Check digit
DEA sum check

Shape

Pattern
^[ABFMPRabfmpr][A-Za-z]\d{7}$
ValueLengthShape
AB12345639matches
BS45678909matches
FH13579059matches
AB1234568rejected: one character short

Background

Origin

A DEA number is an identifier that the US Drug Enforcement Administration assigns to health care providers so that they can prescribe controlled substances.[1] The DEA's Pharmacist's Manual says that knowing how a DEA registration number is constructed can be a useful tool for recognising a forged prescription.[2] Before October 1, 1985, DEA policy gave physicians, dentists, veterinarians and other practitioners registration numbers starting with the letter A.[2] New registration numbers issued to practitioners after that date begin with the letter B or F.[2] Registration numbers issued to mid-level practitioners begin with the letter M.[2] The first letter is almost always followed by the first letter of the registrant's last name, such as J for Jones or S for Smith.[2] A computer-generated sequence of seven numbers comes next, as in the manual's example MJ3614511.[2]

According to Wikipedia, the DEA ran out of B for practitioner registrations and began issuing F as the initial letter instead.[1]

Use

A prescription for a controlled substance must include the practitioner's full name, address and DEA registration number, under 21 CFR 1306.05(a).[2] Wikipedia says the DEA prefers the National Provider Identifier for general identification and reserves DEA numbers for authenticating and tracking prescriptions.[1]

To check the last digit, add the sum of the first, third and fifth digits to twice the sum of the second, fourth and sixth digits.[3] The last digit of that total should be the same as the last digit of the DEA number.[3] A passing check digit shows only that a number is well formed, not that the registration is current. (Meridian's view) The Pharmacist's Manual points registrants to DEA's CSA Registration Tools to verify a practitioner's DEA number.[2]

Practitioners employed by a hospital may prescribe under the hospital's registration, with the hospital assigning each of them a specific internal code number.[2] A related identifier, the Unique Identification Number or X number, consists of two letters and seven numbers with X always as the first letter.[2] The manual's example is that AB1234567 would have a UIN of XB1234567.[2]

Where you'll meet it

The arcos R package, which serves raw ARCOS data, looks up retail and chain pharmacies by a BUYER_DEA_NO field.[4] The same package looks up reporters, including manufacturers and distributors, by a REPORTER_DEA_NO field.[4] Its example output for Mingo County, West Virginia lists BUYER_DEA_NO values such as BM2933263 and AM2373051.[5]

Sources

  1. [1]DEA number - Wikipediasecondary source
  2. [2]Pharmacist's Manual: An Informational Outline of the Controlled Substances Actdocumentation
  3. [3]Federal Controlled Substances Act: Controlled Substances Prescriptionssecondary source
  4. [4]Function reference • arcosdataset
  5. [5]Get census tract GEOID for each pharmacy based on BUYER_DEA_NO (Only includes retail and chain pharmacy designations) — pharm_tracts • arcosdataset

Detection notes

DEA check digit algorithm: sum odd-position digits (1,3,5), sum even-position digits (2,4,6) and multiply by 2, add both sums, last digit of total is the check digit (position 7).

Use it

CLI · DuckDB
$ finetype infer -i "AB1234563" --mode column
→ identity.medical.dea_number

SELECT ft_infer('AB1234563');
-- → 'identity.medical.dea_number'
Cast expression
CAST({col} AS VARCHAR)

Schema

https://meridian.online/schemas/identity.medical.dea_number · Frictionless type string

finetype taxonomy identity.medical.dea_number -o json-schema

Aliases

deadea_registration

Type Registry