PHARMACIST STEVE

It is a pretty accept fact that humans – in general – or not perfect. Give that fact, it would appear that the DEA seems to believe that those in the healthcare are an exception to the rule. There have been stories of the DEA finding a couple of bogus pts in a prescriber’s practice and the agents will offer the bogus pts a “get out of jail free card” if they testify that the prescriber was writing controlled Rxs for the cost of a office visit.. never does a real physical exam. This is your basic diverter/addict… petty crook/criminal… you see it is not against the law for law enforcement to lie to anyone to “make their case” and they get a criminal to perjury themselves to keep themselves from going to jail.. if they get caught at perjuring themselves they are going to jail.. if they don’t perjury themselves.. they are going to go to jail…

It is so easy to become a bogus pt… you find  a few people (4-5) that have insurance … preferably Medicaid… and a single pt that could demonstrate a physical need for pain meds or other controlled meds…  The “sick pt” gets/makes a fake driver’s license to match their face with the name/dob and other vital data points that matches the person that  has the Medicaid card.. and off he goes to prescriber “A”… gets the Rxs and off he goes to Pharmacy “A”…

Then this same pt gets a different driver’s license to match the second Medicaid’s pts info.. and off he goes to prescriber “B”.. gets the Rxs and off he goes to Pharmacy “B”..

This cycle can be repeated as many times that a new prescriber and pharmacy can be “worked” .. each time more doses are obtained… they are split between the participants… some will sell their meds for a profit… some will take some and sell some.. some will take all of them..  The “real sick pt” always gets a share each time he completes a prescriber/pharmacy cycle.

Once they reach 30 days of doing this.. they start repeating the cycle… always keeping their appt with the prescriber, never asking for early refills at the pharmacy… the “model patient”… calls no attention to themselves. Since the real “sick pt” has to take his meds for his pain.. he will always be able to pass a urine/drug test.

One or more of the participants gets caught selling their share of the medications. DEA confiscates prescriber bottles and starts developing a case against the prescriber and pharmacy involved of filling Rxs for a pt without a legit medical need and who is selling/diverting drugs to the street.

When the DEA approaches the prescriber or Pharmacists about this pt.. they will state that they pulled PMP reports on the pt they saw and all it showed was what the prescriber had prescribed…and the prescriber stated that a in person exam was done on the pt..  Same with the pharmacy… pull PMP report.. nothing suspicious … no RED FLAGS …

The DEA offers the person caught selling the drugs a “deal”… they have records that the doc prescribed, the pharmacist filled.. a crime has been committed. Because this prescriber and pharmacy has a couple of these bogus pts/diverters out of hundreds of legit pts..  The DEA has uncovered a CRIME and if there is a couple of bogus pts in the practice.. there has to be more… best/easiest is to just shut the practice down…

You see the law says that the prescriber/pharmacist must see a VALID state/fed ID.. but the healthcare professional has no way of validating the ID presented by the pt. Unless it obviously looks fake.. how is one suppose to validate it..

First of all the pt presenting a fake ID is breaking the law…  don’t look for any arrest records on that one…  This is just one way for a prescriber/pharmacist to be duped …

Of course, if the prescriber or pharmacist had been able to valid the driver’s license against the state’s online BMV database.. no legal meds would have been diverted. Maybe prescribers and pharmacists just need to stop taking care of pts that need control meds until they can have a process in which to allow them to follow the law about accepting a valid driver’s license ?

Does law enforcement come after a bank employee/officer that gets robbed.. because their security was surpassed and allowed the bank to be robbed ? When Target’s customer database was hacked of financial information… did you see anyone in IT being arrested, fined or sent to jail… ? Was Target as a corporation fined ?

Maybe this war on drugs is run under a different set of rules.. than all the other crimes that criminals pull off ?

It is, as if, the war on drugs is working under a process that is designed to fail… at least not for the DEA.. seems to be working pretty well for them.. after all, they have been at it for 45 yrs. Maybe the war on drugs was designed to be a perpetual motion system and/or a Rube Goldberg system ?

Filed under: General Problems