RX Fraud Opens Can of Worms

The arrest earlier this month of a pair in Sands Springs has police looking for more members of a group involved in prescription fraud. And it points out a problem in the current system for tracking prescription narcotic diversion.

Diversion is the DEA’s term for a legitimate pharmaceutical that is “diverted” into the illegal market. In this case, the two men were forging prescriptions and using “mules” to pick them up. The prescriptions were printed off of legitimate paper stock using original prescriptions as models. The paper was correct and a computer printer was able to duplicate other information.

The problem for pharmacies is two-fold. First, when a prescription is presented after doctor’s hours, there is no way to directly verify it. Pharmacists are left trying to authenticate it by matching it to either known samples from the same doctor or simple judgment call. The closer a counterfeit matches the real thing, the harder it is to detect. A second problem is that pharmacies have a financial incentive to dispense medications. If they operate unethically, they may accept questionable scripts.

Police say further investigation could lead to dozens more arrests. The reason is that pharmacies ask for identification when highly addictive drugs (the ones that the counterfeiters are after) are dispensed. Having a group with a variety of IDs makes it easier to hit the same pharmacy multiple times.

According to a report on the NewsOne6 website, Captain Huckeby of the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office said, "The number of pills that we're getting from them, had they sold them at street value just between these two, it averages out to be $250,000."

Agents have identified 15 different painkillers and psychotropic drugs so far from the scripts. They seized the pills, as well as three vehicles, drugs, guns and thousands in cash during a search at a home in Sand Springs.

The solution to this problem may involve a system of electronically verifying prescriptions for narcotics or only allowing a “get by” quantity to be dispensed until a physician’s office can be contacted the next day for verification.