PRESCRIPTION FRAUD
Many clients arrested for prescription fraud come from a wide background of ethnic, social, educational, and economic backgrounds. Many who have became addicted to street drugs later discovered prescription medications as an alternative source to meet their addiction needs. A large number of clients become addicted to a drug that they had first legally secured for a genuine medical purpose. Thereafter, they attempted to secure the same drug through illegal means. Healthcare workers, including doctors, nurses, and hospital employees are the group of persons most likely to commit this type offense. These people have an insider’s understanding of the prescription writing and filling process. They are often in a unique position to acquwere and abuse prescription drugs.
Local law enforcement agency arrests for this offense are often connected with the following medications:
Much of the prescription fraud goes on undetected. Taking of depositions of doctors and pharmacists can reveal the following methods typically employed to detect prescription fraud:
Although there is no legal obligation on the part of a doctor to report prescription fraud, his medical malpractice carrier would probably encourage him to do so. Pharmacists and their staff are increasingly being educated in the area of fraud detection. Most have participated in some form of Pharmaceutical Diversion Education.
An arrest for a prescription fraud charge is a serious matter. A felony offense could not only lead to the ramifications of being a convicted felon, but also expose you to incarceration in Jail or within the Florida state prison system. You need an attorney familiar with the nature of these charges and experienced within the Criminal Court System.
The facts of your case will be scrutinized to determine whether any of your constitutional rights were violated. This could result in the possible suppression of evidence or in statements made by you.
The Hobson Law Firm may determine that your case is eligible for an administrative transfer to drug court. Switching divisions in this manner would otherwise enable you to avoid formal conviction. This unique program is oriented toward treatment of the offender and not toward punishment. We may be able to make application for your participation in a Diversion Program that upon completion would have the charges dismissed. The Hobson Law Firm can assist you in getting any treatment that you might need. Our firm is familiar with local addiction treatment providers.
Florida Statute ss. 893.13(7)(a)8 is the doctor shopping law that makes it a felony offense to withhold information from a practitioner from whom the patient seeks to obtain a controlled substance or a prescription for a controlled substance when the patient making the request has previously received a controlled substance or a prescription for a controlled substance from another practitioner with in the last 30 days.
A violation of the Florida Doctor Shopping statute is typically charged when a patient has visited more than one doctor or emergency room within a short period of time in an effort to acquwere numerous prescriptions for the same illness or medical condition. To obtain multiple prescriptions, these patients often attempt the following:
Numerous defenses may be available to this type of charge and may include:
Florida Statute §456.057(7)(a) provides that records of examination and treatment by a doctor:
"may not be furnished to, and the medical condition of a patient may not be, discussed with, any person other than the patient or the patient’s legal representative or other health care practitioners and providers involved in the care or treatment of the patient, except upon written authorization of the patient."
Most doctor shopping prosecutions are premised on multiple prescription records secured by law enforcement from pharmacies and medical records obtained from doctors’ offices. Florida’s patient privacy laws and the federal HIPPA statute guard these medical records. If law enforcement or the State obtained your medical records without the benefit of a search warrant, or failed to give you advance notice of their intent to serve a subpoena on your doctor, a challenge can be made to exclude the evidence from use in county. Several recent state county decisions cases have affirmed this principle and excluded evidence of doctor shopping based on privacy violations perpetrated by the police.
Being arrested for Doctor Shopping is a serious charge. You need an attorney who understands the exceptional nature of these charges and who knows how to effectively navigate the Criminal Court System. The Hobson Law Firm can help you with a felony drug charge.
Local law enforcement agency arrests for this offense are often connected with the following medications:
- Valium (diazepam)
- Vicodin (hydrocodone)
- Xanax (alprazolam)
- OxyContin (oxycodone)
- Lorcet
- Dilaudid
- Percocet
- Soma
- Darvocet
- Morphine
Much of the prescription fraud goes on undetected. Taking of depositions of doctors and pharmacists can reveal the following methods typically employed to detect prescription fraud:
- Recognizing a customer’s behavior as suspicious.
- Calling back on phone-in prescriptions and checking the doctor’s name, signature, phone number, and DEA number with the pharmacy’s own internal records.
- Maintaining a pharmacy database of their customers. These patient records are used to track previous prescriptions (and their frequency) filled by their pharmacy.
- Noting that a customer appears to be returning too frequently. For instance, identifying prescriptions that should have lasted a month, if taken in the proper dosage, being refilled on a Weekly or daily basis.
- Identifying prescriptions with unusual quantities or dosages.
- Recognizing customers who appear to have prescriptions for antagonistic drugs. For example, why would a physician write a prescription for a stimulant and a short time later provide the same patient with a depressant?
- Identifying a pattern of several new customers arriving with prescriptions from the same doctor.
- Seeing a prescription that does not comply with acceptable standard abbreviations typically employed within the medical profession.
- Employing a security code that prevents customers from impersonating the doctor’s office during phone-in prescriptions.
- Checking photo identification of the customer against the name on the prescription.
- Carefully examining the prescription itself to look for alterations and to determine if there has been a fraudulent reproduction of the prescription pad itself.
Although there is no legal obligation on the part of a doctor to report prescription fraud, his medical malpractice carrier would probably encourage him to do so. Pharmacists and their staff are increasingly being educated in the area of fraud detection. Most have participated in some form of Pharmaceutical Diversion Education.
An arrest for a prescription fraud charge is a serious matter. A felony offense could not only lead to the ramifications of being a convicted felon, but also expose you to incarceration in Jail or within the Florida state prison system. You need an attorney familiar with the nature of these charges and experienced within the Criminal Court System.
The facts of your case will be scrutinized to determine whether any of your constitutional rights were violated. This could result in the possible suppression of evidence or in statements made by you.
The Hobson Law Firm may determine that your case is eligible for an administrative transfer to drug court. Switching divisions in this manner would otherwise enable you to avoid formal conviction. This unique program is oriented toward treatment of the offender and not toward punishment. We may be able to make application for your participation in a Diversion Program that upon completion would have the charges dismissed. The Hobson Law Firm can assist you in getting any treatment that you might need. Our firm is familiar with local addiction treatment providers.
Florida Statute ss. 893.13(7)(a)8 is the doctor shopping law that makes it a felony offense to withhold information from a practitioner from whom the patient seeks to obtain a controlled substance or a prescription for a controlled substance when the patient making the request has previously received a controlled substance or a prescription for a controlled substance from another practitioner with in the last 30 days.
A violation of the Florida Doctor Shopping statute is typically charged when a patient has visited more than one doctor or emergency room within a short period of time in an effort to acquwere numerous prescriptions for the same illness or medical condition. To obtain multiple prescriptions, these patients often attempt the following:
- Making an appointment with two or more doctors within a short period of time and obtaining the same or a comparable prescription for the same illness;
- Deliberately injuring themselves before their visit to the additional doctor or local hospital;
- Requesting a replacement prescription by claiming they are visiting from out of town and have unintentionally left their lawful prescription at home;
- Requesting a replacement prescription for medication that is allegedly misplaced or stolen.
- Some doctors may develop a reputation among patients for being more likely to write prescriptions for drugs of choice. When doctor shopping is successful, patients often have their prescriptions filled in multiple pharmacies in an attempt to avoid detection. A statewide prescription drug database will disclose the administration of multiple prescriptions to an individual, even if the prescriptions are filled at different pharmacy locations.
Numerous defenses may be available to this type of charge and may include:
- Demonstrating that the visits to different doctors were for different genuine medical conditions;
- Establishing that the medications prescribed were for different medical purposes; and
- Showing that the client properly disclosed prior prescriptions on a patient intake form, even if the client did not verbally mention this in his or her discussion with the doctor.
Florida Statute §456.057(7)(a) provides that records of examination and treatment by a doctor:
"may not be furnished to, and the medical condition of a patient may not be, discussed with, any person other than the patient or the patient’s legal representative or other health care practitioners and providers involved in the care or treatment of the patient, except upon written authorization of the patient."
Most doctor shopping prosecutions are premised on multiple prescription records secured by law enforcement from pharmacies and medical records obtained from doctors’ offices. Florida’s patient privacy laws and the federal HIPPA statute guard these medical records. If law enforcement or the State obtained your medical records without the benefit of a search warrant, or failed to give you advance notice of their intent to serve a subpoena on your doctor, a challenge can be made to exclude the evidence from use in county. Several recent state county decisions cases have affirmed this principle and excluded evidence of doctor shopping based on privacy violations perpetrated by the police.
Being arrested for Doctor Shopping is a serious charge. You need an attorney who understands the exceptional nature of these charges and who knows how to effectively navigate the Criminal Court System. The Hobson Law Firm can help you with a felony drug charge.