Should 'Doctor Shopping' be a crime?

About the Limbaugh non-charge? Or the crime on the books?

The former, it will never be brought to trial. The latter, it is unproveable.

Like Passing a law against sodomy between husband and wife. You really want anyone looking into your bedroom to see if you are obeying that kind of law?

This is a tough one. It is an abuse of the system but one the system hasn't put any stops in for. Even if it was illegal, I think it would be difficult to catch these people. I do think it is wrong. These meds could be ending up on the street and in the hands of young ones who think drinking with pain pills is fun and not so dangerous. Still it's going to be a tough thing to enforce unless there is some sort of major drug store or physician cooperation.

yep if there is a law on the books that prohibit "dr. shopping" then rush must face the music.

BUT, using someones medical records for a fishing expedation is low and dangerous to ALL of us.

Do you want anyone in law to have free and clear access to your medical files?

I know I do not.

This is an odd question you pose. The term 'doctor shopping' can be turned into a term which suggests a bit of innocent wrongdoing perhaps not worthy enough to be labelled a crime. I don't know most people's personal politics, but I can only assume this is in reference to Rush Limbauch's duplicit use of narcotics which we all know, from common sense and from any responsible pharmacist who fills our prescription, limits our mental capacity while under the influence. The large quantities of pills listed in his indictment certainly suggest constant use by a chronic drug addict, and by that I mean at any given time he would give a piss test he would be found to have narcotic sedatives in his system. Overall I think it's more sad than anything. The poor guy made some now-disastrous comments about drug using democrats and he was made to publicly defend hiself about doctor-client priveledges and the right to privacy, but we all know he didn't have any problems with due-diligence in any investigations or so-called 'liberals'. I never feel animosity towards Rush and his addiction. I feel animosity for his having slandered other addicts when he was flying high (literally) as a moral Republican non-drug-addicted personality. One HAS to talk the talk if they take a public stand over a particular position. A good example was Bob Barr's comments about how Clinton makes a mockery of family and marriage and family values and christian living, meanwhile not thinking the public would be bombarded with facts of his real respect for marriage. He held marriage as such a moral responsibility he embarked on his moral crusade three times. He even left one cancer-diagnosed moral responsibility for another healthier and younger moral responsibility. When you can't hold others to the same standards you demand, you have no right to talk about morality at all, whatsoever.
Dharm doctor shopping is wrong as well as illegal. You want to become the biggest most successful drug addict enabler in the world? Get rid of controls which forbid and trace people who try take more pills than they obviously need. Maybe your kids will be unlucky enough to come across even one of the thousands of pills which are in addict's hands because they doctor shop for their pills. While I don't crass out anyone who wishes to use drugs for entertaining feelgood fun, I DO crass out over thousands of illegally gotten pills which could do harm to others. Put it this way. Once someone is in possession of more drugs than he could hope to take himself in a month, the risk of harm increases.

No, it shouldn't. If doctors hand out prescriptions to people who don't need them, then they should be charged. If people take their prescription medicine and sell it on the street, they should be charged. To go any deeper requires the government to scrutinize our medical conditions, and decide if we really needed to change doctors or not, or if we really needed those pills or not.

In short, it's just another way for nasty local prosecutors to stick it to people they want to.

Wow, I'm sitting here nodding my head in agreement with Reiki House. Mark this day on your calendars folks it won't happen often!!

Where did we get so paranoid in our "war on drugs" that we decided that legitimate control of pain is a legal, instead of medical decision? I can understand wanting to keep a lid on recreational use of drugs, but if a physician can justify prescribing pain medication to a patient who suffers chronic pain, what is the problem?

From what I've read and heard, Rush Limbaugh has a lot of back problems. He has been through all the standard surgeries to correct the problem, but none of them did much more than reduce the pain. So he was prescribed pain medication up until the time he reached some magicaly, bureacratic time limit when (I guess by magic) all pain apparently subsides and patients no longer have a need for the medication. "Doctor Shopping" wouldn't even be an issue to legislate if the DEA would get off of the backs of Doctors and let them practice medicine.

On the other hand (and this is where I agree with Reiki House), Rush has always been really harsh on any drug addict. Most of us who have been listening to him for long enough remember his total thrashing of Kirk Cobaine after he committed suicide. Apparently both had a chronic pain problem, they just turned to different drugs to control it. Who knows, if Kirk Cobaine could have legally consulted a doctor for his medical problems, he would have had better advice than the illegal meds he turned to (of course, that would be assuming he'd take the doctor's advice and stay away from the illegal drugs while on the legal ones). Of course, then we'd never have the "Foo Fighters" which to me are tons better than Nivana anyway (although I did like Nirvana).

Yes, Rush might just have to face the courts. However, if he was legitimately in pain, why should he ever have had to turn to illegal actions for which he's been accused?

The latter, it is unproveable.

Actually, it's proveable.  You don't even have to dig into a person's medical records to do it.  Physicians have to keep very accurate records of the narcotics they prescribe and whom they prescribe them to....

Still it's going to be a tough thing to enforce unless there is some sort of major drug store or physician cooperation.

Good point.

 

Do you want anyone in law to have free and clear access to your medical files?

Nope.  Doctor patient confidentiality...

if a physician can justify prescribing pain medication to a patient who suffers chronic pain, what is the problem?

The point that youy're missing is that people who doctor shop will also fabricate a condition to get meds for it.  You're looking at this from the POV that thos who doctor shop have chronic pain, and that's not the case.

Who knows, if Kirk Cobaine could have legally consulted a doctor for his medical problems, he would have had better advice than the illegal meds he turned to (of course, that would be assuming he'd take the doctor's advice and stay away from the illegal drugs while on the legal ones).

It's Kurt, and he DID consult a physician.  He simply found that smack worked better for him than anything the doctor gave him, and because of his history with dependence on street drugs a lot of physicians woudn't prescribe him narcotics. 

I think that abuse of medicine has a chance of being stymied by the use of computers now. For example, I can go to
my doctor and get an Rx, BUT, any Rx's this doctor and any doctor that's taken care of me, (in my health care system) has a record of my getting said Rx's. Hopefully this might help stop the abuse you're talking about. To answer your question though,
do I think it should be a crime?
I think it is illegal to 'doctor shop", in so far as getting too many narcotics for pain within a certain time frame, just like it's illegal
to give a Rx of yours to a friend or relative, or worse to sell it! it isn't illegal to
go from doctor to doctor, but it seems like it is illegal to get ahold of too many narcotics at one time.
I have a relative
that was hooked on Tylenol 3 and wanted me to get my Rx filled to give her. I didn't know it was illegal to give someone a couple of pills that one has, and then I saw on tv that Winona Ryder got in trouble for that! So I told my relative that while I didn't think
it hurt to give her something I already had, that I had just discovered that what she was asking me to do was illegal and I
wanted no part of that!
If people try to make it illegal to go from one doctor to another, there'll be outcries of our rights being violated and all ---- will break
out! Nuf Said!

Actually, toward the end of his life, Cobain had begun taking a non-opiate medicine that helped his stomach condition. It's in his journals, I'll look up the name when I have time. It is this that makes people speculate that the 3 times lethal dose found in his system after his "suicide" really means that he was forcibly drugged and then murdered for his money.

The only reason I'm against doctor shopping is that if each precription is claimed on the person insurance, that's driving up costs for all of us. If the person pays for this stuff themselves, let them have the pills they want.

Drug laws in this country are insane. Drugs should be legal. Even smack.

Cheers.

so far as getting too many narcotics for pain within a certain time frame,

Exactly. You go beyond 'for medicinal purposes' and get into 'for recreational use' territory.
Myrr: I'm with you on the insurance issue. If a person is paying for it themselves, then fair enough, but my worry is more with the physicians who end up getting reprimanded for being too loose and free with the narcotics.
I know that he was taking a non-opiate, and I think it was tramadol? Aka Ultram. I don't have a copy of his journal....but you've promted me to go get one. Thanks!

Reiki, I gave you an insightful for that comment. Truly well written. And, I agree!

I've never been able to pin down what kind of abdominal illness Cobain had, but if it is anything like the one I have doctors won't give you pain medication for it. They certainly won't give me any, because anything "feel good" is horribly addictive if you suffer from a disease that makes you "feel bad" all the time. Stimulants OR depressants aren't negotiable according to my doctor, since there's not really any cure and anything I take I'd just have to keep taking from now on.

The point that youy're missing is that people who doctor shop will also fabricate a condition to get meds for it. You're looking at this from the POV that thos who doctor shop have chronic pain, and that's not the case.

Not missing the point in general, just talking about situations like Rush Limbaugh's (and apparently Bakerstreet's). There are a lot of ways to keep accountability of meds prescribed without resorting to telling a patient with chronic pain that they have no legal recourse.

When your crime is experiencing pain 1 day longer than some know-nothing sitting comfortably in an air conditioned office has deemed "appropriate, the only real criminal is the idiot in the office.

...and yes, it was "Kurt".

They certainly won't give me any, because anything "feel good" is horribly addictive if you suffer from a disease that makes you "feel bad" all the time

Which is part of the reason I pushed hard to get my back surgically fixed and why I'm so happy that it's getting fixed. I can't be on narcotics forever...I don't WANT to be on narcotics forever, and if I'm on them for much longer I'm afraid I'll end up with a physical dependency. So, surgery's the best way to go.

just talking about situations like Rush Limbaugh's (and apparently Bakerstreet's). There are a lot of ways to keep accountability of meds prescribed without resorting to telling a patient with chronic pain that they have no legal recourse.

Yes, but a lot of those rely on the patient being honest. If a pt ends up with a 'taste' for them and decides to go doctor shopping....well, it would be easy to lie to get your stash, you dig?

if a physician can justify prescribing pain medication to a patient who suffers chronic pain, what is the problem? The point that youy're missing is that people who doctor shop will also fabricate a condition to get meds for it.

The point that you seem to be missing is the FACT that he has a DOCUMENTED factual history of "chronic" back pain. And has as such ALL associated surguries that might have helped him. Which none did.

The latter, it is unproveable. Actually, it's proveable. You don't even have to dig into a person's medical records to do it. Physicians have to keep very accurate records of the narcotics they prescribe and whom they prescribe them to....

And if this was so "provable" then why did they bitch, whine, complain and push to get his "medical records"? And just for your edification, the records of narcotics perscribed that you speak of are PART of the patients records! And as such you NEED to "dig" into a patients med history.

What I'd really like to know is what do you have against Rush that you're screaming for his blood?

The point that you seem to be missing is the FACT that he has a DOCUMENTED factual history of "chronic" back pain. And has as such ALL associated surguries that might have helped him. Which none did.

First of all, I'm not talking specifically about RL here. I'm talking about doctor shopping in general. Get past the RL scenario and look at the other things I'm talking about.....people who go around collecting as many prescriptions as they can for narcotics because they like them. not because they have pain that's uncontrooled, but because they get high on percocet or vicodin or whatever. Theres only so much that can be used for pain relief, y'know. The rest is for recreation.

What I'd really like to know is what do you have against Rush that you're screaming for his blood?

Where on this thread did I say that? I think you're getting your threads confused. As for what I have against him...well, he's a self-righteous hypocrite who made some incredibly insensitive remarks. I'd like to know why YOU can't admit that doctor shopping and being deceitful and manipulative to obtain prescriptions was wrong.

Where did we get so paranoid in our "war on drugs" that we decided that legitimate control of pain is a legal, instead of medical decision?

during the 1920s when the ama chose to cave on the issue rather than risk having to involve themselves in the cases of several doctors who were being prosecuted for violating laws which prohibited doctors from treating addiction. less than a decade later, it became commonplace for doctors to underprescribe narcotics in the misguided belief that a little excruciating pain wasn't too much to pay to avoid the risk of creating an addict. of course the drs weren't the ones in pain.

only in the past 20 years has the medical profession finally reevaluated this position--hence the introduction of devices that enable those in pain to adjust their own dosages. still there are a lotta people who suffer needlessly because of that attitude.

federal law requires the use of triplicate prescription forms for a number of drugs the dea--in its infinite wisdom--deems particularly abusable (oxycodone, hyrocodone, hydromorphone, etc.). supposedly trip scripts help to identify mds who may be overprescribing these drugs (it's still illegal for a physician to treat addiction btw unless he or she has a special license to do so).

it don't always work. a couple years back, there was a dr in ventura country who prescribed something like 900 oxycontins to each of 6 patients over the course of about a year...all of whom had their scrips filled by the same pharmacist.

no matter how much pain one is in--or how liberal a doctor may interpret dosing recommendations (hahahah funny that rush would have to seek out a liberal croaker huh?)--by the time one is receiving a reasonable dosage from several different doctors who are unaware of the others, it's fairly safe to say one is overmedicating oneself.

i have no problem with anyone who wishes to do just that even if it requires a clever ruse or two. like complaining of symptoms associated with kidney stones and then pricking one's finger so as to be able to mix a lil blood in with one's urine sample. or sending one's cleaning lady and maybe the neighbor's cleaning lady and maybe a few of their family members to make the rounds of soft-hearted gps who prefer cash to a lotta medical billing red tape.

but it is illegal. if you can't do the time cuz you're such a noxious, hypocritical loud-mouthed punk aint no question you're gonna be flavor of the month down to the county lockup, you shouldnt do the crime.

but it is illegal. if you can't do the time cuz you're such a noxious, hypocritical loud-mouthed punk aint no question you're gonna be flavor of the month down to the county lockup, you shouldn't do the crime.

Kingbee....just for your edification, I will reiterate what both Karen and I have said. Doctor shopping is only actually illegal in "one" state. And that's Florida.
But I throughly concur with the rest of your post.

Should 'Doctor Shopping' be a crime? By: dharmagrl Posted: 7/12/2005 4:38:38 PM on Life As An Air Force Wife.... Just when we thought Rush Limbaugh and his addiction to prescription drugs were old news, we're informed that he could be facing criminal charges for 'doctor shopping'. For those who don't know, 'doctor shopping' is a term used to describe drug seeking activity by patients with either a dependency on or a taste for prescription narcotics. Patients will go to a variety of different physicians, sometimes with a real ailment that they milk for all it's worth or an exaggerated/false illness, and they'll ask for a prescription for pain medications. Usually none of the physicians are aware that they're not the only one treating the patient, and if they do know about their shared care they're not usually aware that multiple prescriptions for narcotics are being written. People who engage in this activity will fill their prescriptions at different pharmacies, pay cash for their medications rather than file an insurance claim, and sometimes will use an assumed name in an effort to avoid detection. At the moment, only one state in the nation (Florida) has laws against doctor shopping.

Where on this thread did I say that? I think you're getting your threads confused. As for what I have against him...well, he's a self-righteous hypocrite who made some incredibly insensitive remarks. I'd like to know why YOU can't admit that doctor shopping and being deceitful and manipulative to obtain prescriptions was wrong.

No I didn't get my threads confused, I merely added them up, you know the 2+2=4 thing? I've "tried" explaining and telling you the why but I don't seem to be getting through to you. But I DO NOT see doctor shopping as wrong.

I think they shouldn't be punished, for the 'crime' like actions...because in the end...they've punished themselves...with the side effects, etc...

At the moment, only one state in the nation (Florida) has laws against doctor shopping.

it's a federal crime to obtain schedule i - schedule iv drugs by fraudulent means.

"it's a federal crime to obtain schedule i - schedule iv drugs by fraudulent means."

Like I said, though, fraud is pretty subjective. A guy has two more refills on his bottle from his old doctor, and switches to a new one who goes ahead and gives him a new presciption so he won't have to in a couple of weeks and, blammo, a felony drug charge.

At the moment, only one state in the nation (Florida) has laws against doctor shopping. it's a federal crime to obtain schedule i - schedule iv drugs by fraudulent means.

Doctor shopping does NOT fall under this! "If"it did the feds would be ALL over this by now and Rush would be facing federal charges and he'd be in "federal" court not FL state court! He did NOT obtain any drugs by a legally defined fraudulent means. And just an FYI if doctor shopping is "illegal" on a Federal level, where is the federal statute covering it. Just an FYI... you won't find any because the feds do not consider this to be fraud.

Just an FYI... you won't find any because the feds do not consider this to be fraud.

dont bet on it

21 USCS Section 843 (1996)
Section 843. Prohibited acts C
(a) Unlawful acts. It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally--
(3) to acquire or obtain possession of a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception, or subterfuge;

just cuz it's not often used as the basis for prosecution don't mean it can't be. in this case, i'm sure they'd rather let the state handle it.

and before you tell me he wasnt engaged in acquiring or obtaining a controlled substance by misrepresentation or deception, think about sending your maid to the doctor to get you some oxycontin.

A guy has two more refills on his bottle from his old doctor, and switches to a new one who goes ahead and gives him a new presciption so he won't have to in a couple of weeks and, blammo, a felony drug charge

the dea rarely gets involved with this kinda thing but there's always the potential. the people i've known who worked script scams were charged with some other offense...cut loose in return for ratting out their regular mds/pharmacists.