Frequently Asked Questions

Each MN licensed manufacturer and each MN licensed wholesaler must report to the board every sale, delivery, or other distribution within or into Minnesota of any opiate that is made to any practitioner, pharmacy, hospital, veterinary hospital, or other person who is permitted to possess controlled substances for administration or dispensing to patients.

Each owner of a MN licensed pharmacy with at least one location within Minnesota, must report to the board any intracompany delivery or distribution into MN of any opiate to the extent that those deliveries and distributions are not reported to the board by a licensed wholesaler owned by, under contract to, or otherwise operating on behalf of the owner of the pharmacy.

To set up an account to submit data, click here.

Opiate Reporting

Annually, an annual report is due no later than March 1st.

All sales, delivery, intracompany delivery, or other distributions of opiates as defined in Minnesota Statutes Section, 152.02, Subd. 3-5 must be reported.

Please note, this includes codeine-containing preparations that are classed as Schedule-III controlled substances in Minnesota, as well as butorphanol and pentazocine.

Yes, please see the response above.

Per Minnesota Statute Section, 151.066, a "unit means the individual dosage form of the particular drug product that is prescribed to the patient".

"One unit" equals one tablet, capsule, patch, syringe, milliliter, or gram.

The Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System (ARCOS).

Reportable opiates are identified by using the Federal DEA Controlled Substances List where NARC = Y and Minnesota Statutes Section 152.02, Subd. 3-5..

Please note, codeine-containing preparations that are classified as Schedule-III controlled substances in Minnesota, as well as butorphanol and pentazocine, must be reported.

The ARCOS format is being used for reporting with one exception, this is an annual report, not a monthly or quarterly report. The following entries in the frequency indicator field will be accepted: M, Q, or Y.
Please ensure you are taking into account the format changes from 2000 to the ARCO’s format (Year 2000 Formatting Changes).

The MNOPR system can accept the following status codes:

• ARCOS Disposition Transaction Codes (Decreases to Inventory)
• S ‐ Sale, Disposition, or Transfer

Miscellaneous Transaction Codes:

• 7 ‐ No ARCOS Activity for the Current Reporting Period

Acceptable file extensions are .dat or .txt
A maximum size limitation of 100MB.

Required naming convention:

• DEA number of reporting manufacturer or distributor
• Year of reporting period
• Extension of .dat or .txt

For example: AB9876543_2020.dat

Reporting by DEA is required. It will be possible to set up a reporting account which can be used to report for multiple DEA numbers.

A zero report is required. With a zero report on record, it will confirm that no activity in or within MN took place and save all parties from unnecessary inquires. The ‘zero report’ contains a header record identifying the reporting facility and a single transaction record with a transaction code of ‘7’ (per DEA ARCOS coding) which indicates there were no transactions to report during the previous calendar year.

Yes, it will be sent to the email address as provided in the data reporter’s account profile.

Yes, it will be sent to the email address as provided in the data reporter’s account profile.

If any data element submitted does not pass validation, you will be required to resubmit the entire file once you have resolved the errors. The corrected file must be given the SAME name as the original file that was submitted. Additionally, if during the final processing of the data, it is determined there are other issues with the data, you would also be required to resubmit the entire file once the errors have been resolved. Failure to submit the updated file prior to March 1, 2021, may result in being assessed a $500 a day penalty for late reporting.

In order to delete a valid entry that was submitted in error, enter zero for the quantity and resubmit the file using the same file name as the original. Please note, the Action Indicator is not used.

All replacement or corrected files must be given the SAME name as the original file that was submitted.