Ordinance would extend background checks to pain management clinic employees

Daytona Beach, Florida, city officials will soon vote on an ordinance that would regulate pain-management clinics with stricter background screening policies, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports. The city's moratorium on pain-management clinics expires at the end of the year, and city council members have already sent a first vote of approval through to conduct more thorough background checks on staff members who have access to drugs. Currently, most clinics only require the doctor or clinic operator to submit to a screening. The move comes partly in response to events that took place last year when two clinics in Volusia County were shut down by police because they were operating as "pill mills," the news source notes in a separate article. A search of the facilities found that doctors were prescribing controlled substances such as Oxycodone and Xanax without full examinations of their patients. If approved during a second vote, the ordinance will take effect on January 1 and existing clinics in the area would have one year to comply.