DEA Requests for Surrender of Registration

DEA Requests for Surrender of Registration

A DEA agent showed up at your medical practice unannounced. They presented DEA Form 104 – “Voluntary Surrender of Controlled Substances Registration.” They’re making it sound like signing away your DEA certificate is the safest choice, the way to avoid criminal prosecution, the way to make this all go away quietly.

They’re wrong.

Surrender doesn’t stop criminal prosecution, doesn’t stop your state medical board from going after your license, doesn’t prevent CMS from excluding you from Medicare. Getting that registration back? 18-24 months of administrative hell – if you can get it back at all.

What to Say When DEA Presents Form 104

DEA Form 104 is officially titled “Voluntary Surrender of Controlled Substances Registration.” Once signed, DEA cancels your registration on the spot. No cooling-off period, no undo button, your ability to prescribe controlled substances ends the second you sign. DEA agents know this – that’s why they pressure you to sign immediately, they make it sound administrative, “cooperation,” “making this easy,” “avoiding the hassle of a hearing,” what they don’t tell you is signing Form 104 doesn’t prevent any of the things they’re implying it will prevent.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees your right to counsel in criminal proceedings but here’s the reality – when DEA shows up with Form 104 they’re not reading you Miranda rights, they’re treating this as “administrative,” that’s the trap. The moment you sign away your DEA registration without a lawyer analyzing the full picture – criminal exposure, state board risk, CMS implications – you’re making a decision that could affect potential criminal proceedings you don’t even know are coming. When the DEA agent is standing in your office waiting for you to sign, there’s only one thing to say: “I need to consult with my attorney before signing anything.” Then you stop talking, you don’t provide a statement, you don’t agree to “informal surrender,” you don’t try to “explain” why you shouldn’t surrender, you just stop.

If you’re on this page it’s because you’re in this exact situation – you need someone who understands both the DEA administrative world AND the criminal defense world. At Spodek Law Group we get it, we’ve defended healthcare providers in DEA administrative proceedings and federal criminal cases, we know how these investigations escalate, we know the tactical mistakes that turn an administrative surrender into a criminal admission.

Surrendering Your DEA Registration Doesn’t Stop Prosecution

Let’s be very, very clear about what voluntarily surrendering your DEA registration does NOT protect you from – it does not prevent DEA from referring your case to federal prosecutors for criminal charges, it does not prevent your state medical board from initiating disciplinary proceedings (they receive automatic notification of DEA surrenders), it does not prevent CMS from excluding you from Medicare and Medicaid participation which could end your ability to treat most patients, according to recent analysis from May 2025 many healthcare practitioners voluntarily surrender their DEA registration every year after a DEA inspection or raid thinking it will make the problem go away but the reality is far different because the surrender creates a paper trail that can be used against you in multiple proceedings.

Think about it from the government’s perspective – when you voluntarily surrender your DEA registration you’re essentially admitting there was a problem serious enough to warrant giving up your prescribing authority, that admission doesn’t stay confined to the DEA administrative file, it gets shared with state licensing boards, it gets noticed by CMS, and if there’s a criminal investigation brewing (and you might not even know there is one) that surrender can be pointed to as consciousness of guilt. We’ve seen this play out many, many, times – healthcare providers who thought surrendering would end the investigation but instead the surrender was just the beginning, federal prosecutors used the surrender as evidence that the provider knew they were violating the law, state boards used it to justify license suspension, CMS used it to exclude the provider from all federal healthcare programs.

Unlike other law firms who focus solely on healthcare compliance and might advise you to “cooperate” with DEA we understand the criminal exposure angle – when DEA asks you to surrender your registration it’s not administrative housekeeping it’s evidence collection for potential prosecution and this is where you need a lawyer who has handled BOTH DEA administrative proceedings AND federal criminal defense cases, not one or the other, both. Some healthcare compliance attorneys will tell you cooperation with DEA administrative requests is always the best strategy and that might work for routine compliance issues but when DEA is presenting you with Form 104 this isn’t routine, this is the government building a case and your surrender hands them evidence they can use in multiple arenas.

Getting Your DEA Registration Back Takes 18-24 Months

Maybe you’re thinking “I’ll just surrender now to make this go away and get my registration back later when things calm down” – that’s exactly what DEA wants you to think. Current data from 2025 shows the average time to reinstate a surrendered DEA registration is 18-24 months, assuming you even get approved, reinstatement is neither automatic nor guaranteed, it requires a contested administrative proceeding in many cases, DEA has complete discretion to deny your reinstatement permanently.

Think about what 18-24 months without a DEA registration means for your practice – if you’re a pain management specialist, addiction medicine provider, or any practitioner who regularly prescribes controlled substances you can’t practice your specialty, you can’t treat your existing patients who rely on those medications, your revenue crashes, your staff has to be let go or reassigned, your reputation in the medical community suffers, and all of this is happening while you’re spending money fighting for reinstatement.

The reinstatement process isn’t simple paperwork. DEA accepts voluntary surrenders easily – just a signed statement and you’re done. Getting the registration back? That requires proving to DEA that you’ve addressed whatever issue led to the surrender, that you have adequate safeguards in place, that you won’t repeat the behavior, that reinstating you serves the public interest. DEA gets to decide all of that and they’re under no obligation to reinstate you quickly or at all. This is why the “surrender now fix later” strategy is a trap – once you’ve surrendered you lose all leverage, you’re asking DEA for permission to get back what you voluntarily gave up, why would they rush to give it back?

Fight Through Administrative Process

There’s an alternative most healthcare providers don’t know exists – fighting through the administrative process while keeping your DEA registration active or negotiating limited restrictions instead of full surrender, this path preserves options that voluntary surrender destroys forever.

When DEA wants to take action against your registration the normal process is an Order to Show Cause triggering an administrative hearing before an Administrative Law Judge, during this process you have rights, you can present evidence, you can cross-examine government witnesses, you can negotiate, and critically you can settle for something less than full surrender.

A recent case from April 2025 illustrates this perfectly – Frier Levitt represented a physician facing full DEA revocation after Medicare exclusion, through the administrative process they negotiated an outcome where the client retained DEA registration in exchange for minor temporary limitations on prescribing, that physician is still practicing, they still have prescribing authority, they just have some guardrails in place.

Compare that to voluntary surrender – you give up everything immediately then spend 18-24 months begging to get some of it back while the administrative fight preserves your ability to practice while the case is pending, preserves your negotiating leverage, creates a record showing you believed you had defenses not that you admitted wrongdoing by surrendering.

We understand this might feel counterintuitive, when a federal agent is pressuring you to surrender fighting back feels risky but voluntary surrender is riskier, it’s the difference between giving up immediately and fighting for an outcome that lets you keep practicing your profession.

Call 212-300-5196

If you’re reading this the clock is already ticking, maybe the DEA agent just left and you’re researching what Form 104 actually means, maybe you’ve got 48 hours to make a decision, maybe the agent is waiting outside your office while you “think about it.”

You need a lawyer who handles BOTH worlds – DEA administrative defense AND federal criminal defense, not a healthcare compliance attorney who will tell you to cooperate, not a general criminal defense lawyer who doesn’t understand DEA Diversion proceedings, you need someone who sees the full picture.

That’s what we do, our criminal defense attorneys have handled DEA administrative cases and federal healthcare fraud prosecutions, we’ve represented physicians, nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and other healthcare providers facing DEA action, we understand that when DEA presents Form 104 they’re not just looking at your prescribing practices they may already be building a criminal case.

During your first consultation we analyze three things: criminal exposure, state licensing board risk, CMS exclusion risk, then we help you make an informed tactical decision about whether surrendering, fighting, or negotiating makes sense for YOUR situation, not what DEA wants, what YOU need.

The competitive difference is simple – we fight, unlike other law firms who prioritize relationships with prosecutors and DEA our loyalty is to you, we’re not looking to make your case easy for the government, we’re looking to get you the best possible outcome.

The clock started when you got that letter.

212-300-5196.