Legal Status of EPT in Maine

This is a table caption for compliance. Please ignore it.I. Statutes/regs on health care providers’ authority to prescribe for STDs to a patient’s partner(s) w/out prior evaluation (Explanation)

[+] “. . . a health care professional who makes a clinical diagnosis of a sexually transmitted disease may provide expedited partner therapy for the treatment of the sexually transmitted disease if in the judgment of the health care professional the sexual partner is unlikely or unable to present for comprehensive health care, including evaluation, testing and treatment. Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 22 § 1242 (effective 7/12/2010)

[+] “Expedited Partner Therapy can be provided to patients without laboratory confirmation of a sexually transmitted chlamydia and/or gonorrhea infection if the health care professional makes a clinical diagnosis of chlamydia and/or gonorrhea infection in the index case and there is concern about loss of follow-up.” 10-144 CMR Ch. 720, § II

II. Specific judicial decisions concerning EPT (or like practices) (Explanation)

III. Specific administrative opinions by the Attorney General or medical or pharmacy boards concerning EPT (or like practices) (Explanation)

[-] It is the policy of the Board of Licensure in Medicine that prescribing, dispensing or furnishing a prescription medication or device to a person who is not an established patient and whom the physician has not personally examined may be unprofessional conduct subject to disciplinary action pursuant to 32 MRSA, §3282-A, 2, (f). This rule does not apply to admission orders for a newly hospitalized patient, prescribing for a patient of another physician for whom the prescriber is providing coverage, or continuing medication on a short-term basis prior to a new patient’s first appointment.*

IV. Laws that incorporate via reference guidelines as acceptable practices (including EPT) (Explanation)

[+] “Treatment must be in accord with the most current treatment recommendations and standards of care for the Notifiable Disease or Condition, as advised by U.S. CDC and infectious disease providers. In imposing treatment and related public health disease control measures on an individual, the least restrictive measures will be utilized to ensure effective medical treatment of the disease or condition and to limit the spread of the Notifiable Disease or Condition or other infectious disease, which pose a threat to public health. The Department will adopt medical treatment and public health disease control strategies, as described in Section 9(D) of this rule whenever practical and as long as doing so does not unreasonably increase the threat to the public health.” 10-144 Me. Code R. Ch. 258 § 9

[+] “[The Maine Department of Health and Human Services] will use all reasonable means to: […] 4. Institute control measures for Notifiable Diseases and Conditions consistent with the currently accepted standards as found in the Control of Communicable Diseases Manual 20th Edition, published in 2015, or any subsequent edition, which is the official report of the American Public Health Association, unless specified otherwise by the State Epidemiologist.” 10-144 CMR Ch. 258, § 9

[+] “The health department may establish procedures for agents of the department to use in the . . . treatment of individuals having or reasonably believed to have a communicable disease.” Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 22, § 807.

V. Prescription requirements (Explanation)

[-] Prescription drug orders shall contain, at a minimum, (b) name and address of the patient. 02-392 CMR Part 4, Ch. 19 §1, p. 72.*

[-] Prescription label must bear patient’s name. Me. Rev. Stat. Ann. tit. 32 § 13794*

VI. Assessment of EPT’s legal status with brief comments (Explanation)

EPT is permissible.
Statutory and regulatory authority expressly authorizes EPT for the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases.