Michigan Vet Clinic Inspection Checklist

Controlled substances and PDMP

Michigan requires state controlled-substance licensure for controlled-substance activity. Michigan law defines "practitioner" broadly to include a prescriber, pharmacist, scientific investigator, or other person licensed, registered, or otherwise permitted to distribute, dispense, conduct research with, or administer controlled substances in professional practice or research in Michigan. A person who manufactures, distributes, prescribes, or dispenses a controlled substance in Michigan must obtain a controlled-substance license issued by the administrator, unless the person is otherwise exempted. The state controlled-substance license renews concurrently with the holder's Article 15 professional license when both are held, and the license authorizes activity only to the extent authorized by the license. ^{1 2}

Location tracking matters. Michigan requires a separate controlled-substance license at each principal place of business or professional practice where the applicant manufactures, distributes, prescribes, or dispenses controlled substances. The administrator may inspect the establishment before issuing the license. Treat each brick-and-mortar clinic, mobile-unit home base, and shared controlled-drug cache as a license-mapping item before DEA registration, ordering, relocation, or ownership changes. ²

Michigan's PDMP is the Michigan Automated Prescription System (MAPS). LARA describes MAPS as Michigan's Prescription Monitoring Program and says it tracks Schedule II-V controlled-substance prescriptions dispensed in or into Michigan. Michigan law requires the electronic monitoring system to include Schedule II-V controlled substances dispensed in Michigan by veterinarians, pharmacists, and dispensing prescribers, and requires a veterinarian, pharmacist, or dispensing prescriber to use the electronic data transmittal process for reporting. ^{3 4}

Workplace safety and x-ray

Michigan operates an OSHA-approved State Plan through MIOSHA. OSHA's state-plan page says the Michigan State Plan applies to private-sector workplaces in the state except listed federal-retained categories, and also applies to state and local government employers. Federal OSHA covers issues not covered by the Michigan State Plan. ⁵

MIOSHA has adopted many OSHA standards by reference, but OSHA identifies several Michigan standards that differ from federal OSHA, including general-industry standards for walking-working surfaces, fire equipment, HAZWOPER, personal protective equipment, sanitation, the safety code for physical hazards, signs and tags for accident prevention, confined spaces, materials handling and storage, machinery and machine guarding, toxic substances, ionizing radiation, bloodborne pathogens, and hazard communication. For a private veterinary clinic, use the federal OSHA written programs as the floor and route inspection, complaint, recordkeeping, hazard-communication, bloodborne-pathogens, and radiation-safety questions through MIOSHA. ⁵

Michigan's Radiation Safety Section regulates radiation machines by registering and inspecting facilities that use radiation machines. The RSS portal lists services to apply, renew, or amend facility and machine registration, print a facility certificate, access radiation-shielding plan review, and maintain machine registration. Michigan statute authorizes rules for licensing, registration, exemptions, recordkeeping, permissible exposures, reports, protective measures, technical qualifications, handling, storage, posting, labeling, surveys, and monitoring for radiation sources. ^{6 7}

Michigan statute lists annual registration/renewal fees for radiation machines, including veterinary or dental x-ray/electron tubes, and separately lists a fee for a follow-up inspection due to noncompliance. Because the same statute allows annual fee adjustments and was recently amended, treat the statutory fee amounts as a current-source checkpoint rather than a promise that the portal invoice will match this draft. ⁸

Records and sharps

Veterinary medical records: at least 7 years. Michigan veterinary rules require a veterinarian practicing in Michigan to maintain a medical record for each animal patient, herd, flock, or other group that accurately reflects evaluation and treatment, whether provided in person or through telehealth. Records must be legible and retrievable and may be maintained in a written, electronic, audio, or photographic format. The record must document patient/client identification and location, last veterinary service date, reason for contact, case history/problem, vaccination history if known, exam findings, lab and other reports, diagnostic procedures, procedures including surgery, hospitalized-patient daily progress notes, informed consent when appropriate, diagnostic options and treatment plans, relevant client communication, and prescribed medication. ⁹

Michigan requires veterinary medical records to be maintained for at least 7 years from the date of the last veterinary service. Medical records are confidential and may not be released without client consent except as required by law or to protect public health; upon written or oral client request, copies of complete medical records must be provided. ⁹

Michigan EGLE administers and enforces the Medical Waste Regulatory Act and says the Act requires proper handling, storage, treatment, and disposal of potentially infectious medical waste. EGLE states that generators of medical waste must register initially and every 3 years thereafter as producing facilities. Michigan statute defines "producing facility" as a facility that generates, stores, decontaminates, or incinerates medical waste, and defines "sharps" to include needles, syringes, scalpels, and intravenous tubing with needles attached. ^{10 11}

Michigan "medical waste" includes listed categories such as cultures and stocks of infectious agents, liquid human and animal waste including blood, blood products, and body fluids, pathological waste, sharps, and contaminated wastes from animals exposed to agents infectious to humans, primarily research animals. EGLE's FAQ separately warns that medications are not medical waste under Michigan's medical-waste rules and describes medical-waste examples such as saturated blood/body-fluid materials and sharps. ^{12 13}