RSCLADY, and anyone else who can answer this ?

Hi there, sorry to ask you this, but I was reading your post below about the N.Y. Health dept. faxing all your doctors?
How come they did that? I mean, if you are getting scripts legally from your physicians, then how and why would the Health dept. step in? I'm just a bit confused, that's all, and don't understand how the Health Dept. can tell your doctors to stop giving you pain meds?
Again, sorry for being so nosey, but that just really made me think: 'huh?!?!'

Megan

[RCSLADY]

The call it Doctor hopping, it is a form of "obtaining a controlled substance by means of fraud" when several differant doctors give you a controlled substance without knowing about the other doctors. I know this is true because my regular doctor showed it to me on Thursday when I wnet to him to get pills. He wouldn't give me any and it showed all the prescriptions I got for controlled substances over the past six months.  Every doctor that gave me a script for Vicodin or Percocet got a fax of the same letter.  I decided to go cold turkey because this is not even fun anymore.  I was off all pills for two years and felt great.  Then I had surgery on my shoulder and got a script for Vicodin and before long I was back in the game, running from doctor to doctor, ER to ER in search of pills.  I"m tired of all of this and I want my life back.  My boyfrined doesn"t know about this and he will kill me if he finds out that I am having to detox again.

[hopeless]

I think if you get scripts from more than one dr. it can cause this to happen.

Everytime we get scripts for anything narcotic - it gets turned into the Department of Health, and if they see that you have been getting from more than one Dr. they get suspicious. I used to work at our department of health for drug patients and I have seen this happen to several of them as well.

Hope this helped answer you question...

Hopeless

[hopeless]

As a matter of fact, this has just happend to someone in my area a few days ago, he had gone to 3 or 4 different dr.'s and to the ER several times over the past 6 months or so. It was on our local news - said he had a trial and could get up to 6 months in jail and a very LARGE fine...

This scared me cause i also have 4 dr.'s and have went to the ER about 4 or 5 times since Feb. this year. So far i have been lucky i guess - so i wanna keep it this way...No more for me - I definately don't want this to happen!

I am NOT ever going to do this again, they are cracking down on this kind of thing BIG time!!!

Scary thought!

Hopeless

[Gypsygirl66]

The DEA has been trying to fight this "Dr. Shopping" problem for years. It's one of the biggest hurdles they have in fighting the prescription drug abuse problem they're are having (along with the internet). In 2003 COngress appropraited funds to the Department of Justice to promote the State's to implement a program called Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMD).  Each State have there own departments heading this program, but it is hoped that someday that the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will have easy access to any all info. the need.
  PDMPs help cut down on prescription fraud and doctor shopping by giving physicians and pharmacists more complete information about a patient's prescriptions for controlled substances. While the specifics of these programs vary from state to state, they generally will allow the sharing of information. So a physician and for example, a pharmacist to input and receive accurate and timely controlled substance prescription history information while ensuring patient access to needed treatment. Most states also have some mechanism for law enforcement to receive this information in cases where criminal activity is suspected. Some states also allow health care providers to use this information as a tool for the early identification of patients at risk for addiction in order to initiate appropriate medical interventions. In other states the justice system can use this information to assist in the enforcement of laws controlling the sale and use of controlled substance prescription medication. As of February there were only 33 states that have had or plan to have implemented this program, but als on February the President passed a Bill authorizing that any state the implements PDMD will be eligible to receive funding and extra grants.
Hope this helps a little,
Hugs,
GYpsy