Evidence status: CURRENT STATEWIDE PHYSICIAN PAIN-TREATMENT STATUTE. North Dakota’s general physician pain-treatment statute is materially different from its WSI workers’ compensation coverage rules.
Physicians may prescribe controlled substances for pain
North Dakota Century Code Chapter 19-03.3 provides that a physician may prescribe or administer controlled substances to a patient in the course of treatment for pain, subject to medically accepted therapeutic purposes and recordkeeping requirements.
Hospitals and health-care facilities
The chapter states that a hospital or health-care facility may not forbid or restrict the use of controlled substances when prescribed or administered by a physician with staff privileges for a patient diagnosed and treated for pain.
Board discipline
The chapter states that the North Dakota Board of Medicine may not discipline a physician merely for prescribing or administering controlled substances in the course of treating a patient for pain under the chapter.
Limits remain
The protections do not authorize nontherapeutic prescribing. The Board retains authority when treatment is nontherapeutic, required controlled-substance records are not kept, or false or fictitious prescriptions are written.
No treatment-agreement requirement appears in this chapter
Chapter 19-03.3 does not impose the WSI treatment-agreement requirement. The agreement condition documented in this North Dakota Contract-for-Care project comes from the separate workers’ compensation statute, §65-05-39.
Primary source
Reviewed: October 5, 2026.
Evidence boundary: This page records the statewide physician statute and its limits. It does not negate separate payer, workers’ compensation, institutional, or practice policies.