Overdosed: Addicts easily game a system with fraudulent prescriptions/Video

http://www.providencejournal.com/topics/special-reports/overdosed/20140406-overdosed-addicts-easily-game-a-system-with-fraudulent-prescriptionsvideo.ece

http://www.fiercehealthpayer.com/antifraud/story/forging-prescriptions-easy-criminal-says/2014-04-11

Forged prescriptions for controlled substances contribute to addiction, overdose deaths and increased healthcare costs. Prescription forgery is enabled by lax prescribing laws, limited tracking systems and medical professionals’ resistance to stricter prescribing practices, according to The Providence Journal. Prescription forgery is an underreported crime since doctors aren’t required to report patients who abuse prescription drugs. Further, the HIPAA privacy rule generally prohibits doctors from testifying against patients. Often by the time a pharmacist learns of a forged prescription, the suspect has left the store with drugs in hand. A criminal profiled by the ProJo, for instance, forged prescriptions by adding doctors’ names and DEA numbers to phony scripts created on a home computer. He used prepaid cell phones (so numbers couldn’t be traced) to call in prescriptions posing as a doctor. Then he filled more than 100 prescriptions in four months at 34 pharmacies. “They would just fill what I brought them,” he told the ProJo. “It’s crazy how easy it is.

Filed under: General Problems