Corporate Transparency Act

On March 26, 2025, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or FinCEN issued an interim final rule narrowing the entities that are required to report beneficial ownership information (BOI) under the Corporate Transparency Act. Only entities formed under the law of a foreign country and have registered to do business in the U.S. are required to report BOI. Review TMA's Law Guide, Corporate Transparency Act, for additional information.

Medical Licensing boards seeking to “make an example” out of prescribing to self/family

The TMA legal department received contacts from three members during 2024 regarding investigations or formal charges brought against them by the medical licensing boards alleging the physicians self-prescribed or prescribed for family members. One member was reportedly told that the licensing board’s medical consultant “wanted to make an example” out of the prescriber. Both the MD and DO licensing boards have formal policies addressing self and family member prescribing and have adopted the AMA Code of Ethics (Op. 1.2.1) and AOMA Code of Ethics respectively. The technical “gotcha” violation is failure to keep medical records on family member patients.

While the boards’ policies as written seem to allow treatment of immediate family members only in “minor, self-limited, short-duration illnesses, or emergency situations,” in some instances the boards seem to hold physicians to strict liability even if the family member prescriptions were for non-controlled substances for minor short-term type conditions. Click here to access the policy for medical doctors and click here for the policy for osteopathic physicians. At this time, the TMA legal department cautions physicians NOT to prescribe medications to immediate family members for minor, self-limited, short-duration illnesses; only for emergencies, but absolutely keep a medical record on the encounter if it cannot be avoided.

Prescription Laws 

TMA's Law Guide topic, Prescription Laws, is an exhaustive document that details the requirements for issuing and dispensing prescriptions, including material requirements, physician requirements, and reporting. It discusses in detail Tennessee law for issuing opioid prescriptions and the requirement to issue all controlled prescriptions electronically. Member login required to access.

Transfer Controlled Substance Prescription

There are occasions when a pharmacy is unable or unwilling to fill a controlled substance prescription for a patient. A federal law allows a one-time transfer of a controlled substance prescription to another pharmacy designated by the patient. TMA has created a resource explaining this one-time transfer and it may prevent a patient from calling for another prescription. You may print this resource, What Patients Can Do When a Pharmacy Won’t Fill Controlled Drug Prescription, and give it to a patient or let the patient take a picture of it. Go to the Opioid Resource Center at tnmed.org/legal to download this resource.