West Virginia Code 16-5H-9 – Rules
(a) The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Resources, in collaboration with the West Virginia Board of Medicine and the West Virginia Board of Osteopathy, shall promulgate rules in accordance with the provisions of § 29A-1-1 et seq. of this code for the licensure of pain management clinics to ensure adequate care, treatment, health, safety, welfare, and comfort of patients at these facilities. These rules shall include, at a minimum:
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 16-5H-9
- Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
- board: means a board of health serving one or more counties or one or more municipalities or a combination thereof. See West Virginia Code 16-1-2
- Chronic pain: means pain that has persisted after reasonable medical efforts have been made to relieve the pain or cure its cause and that has continued, either continuously or episodically, for longer than three continuous months. See West Virginia Code 16-5H-2
- Department: means the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources: Provided, That beginning January 1, 2024, as used in this chapter, "department" and "Department of Health and Human Resources" means the Department of Health. See West Virginia Code 16-1-2
- Owner: means any person, partnership, association, or corporation listed as the owner of a pain management clinic on the licensing forms required by this article. See West Virginia Code 16-5H-2
- Pain management clinic: means all privately-owned pain management clinics, facilities, or offices not otherwise exempted from this article and which meet both of the following criteria:
(1) Where in any month more than 50 percent of patients of the clinic are prescribed or dispensed Schedule II opioids or other Schedule II controlled substances specified in rules promulgated pursuant to this article for chronic pain resulting from conditions that are not terminal. See West Virginia Code 16-5H-2
- Secretary: means the Secretary of the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources. See West Virginia Code 16-5H-2
(1) The process to be followed by applicants seeking a license;
(2) The qualifications and supervision of licensed and nonlicensed personnel at pain management clinics and training requirements for all facility health care practitioners who are not regulated by another board;
(3) The provision and coordination of patient care, including the development of a written plan of care;
(4) The management, operation, staffing, and equipping of the pain management clinic;
(5) The clinical, medical, patient, and business records kept by the pain management clinic;
(6) The procedures for inspections and for the review of utilization and quality of patient care;
(7) The standards and procedures for the general operation of a pain management clinic, including facility operations, physical operations, infection control requirements, health and safety requirements, and quality assurance;
(8) Identification of drugs that may be used to treat chronic pain that identify a facility as a pain management clinic, including, at a minimum, tramadol and carisoprodol;
(9) Any other criteria that identify a facility as a pain management clinic;
(10) The standards and procedures to be followed by an owner in providing supervision, direction, and control of individuals employed by or associated with a pain management clinic;
(11) Data collection and reporting requirements; and
(12) Such other standards or requirements as the secretary determines are appropriate.
(b) The rules authorized by this section may be filed as emergency rules if deemed necessary to promptly effectuate the purposes of this article. The Legislature finds that the changes made to this article during the 2018 regular session of the Legislature constitute an emergency for the purposes of filing any amendment to existing rules.