The purpose of this system is to identify both “pill mills” and prescription drug dealers who are contributing to prescription drug abuse problems throughout the country.
Unfortunately, if someone makes a mistake entering information at either the doctor’s office or at the pharmacy, major problems can arise. A Dallas/Ft. Worth TV station recently published a story on its web site about a woman who was arrested, charged with felony forgery of a pain prescription and incarcerated overnight because someone entered the wrong physician DEA number into her prescription record.
She was subsequently released when her physician verified that he had written the prescription and that his DEA number was different than the one in her record.
Here are some thoughts about how you can avoid having this problem happen to you:if you will be on long term narcotic pain medication therapy, establish a relationship with a pharmacy in your neighborhood and confirm that your pharmacist has the telephone number of your doctor and vice versa
- if you are treating with more than one doctor and you receive a pain prescription from physician #2, make sure that you discuss this prescription with physician #1 before filling it. It is generally better to accept narcotic prescriptions from only one physician
- legitimate doctors do not want the be associated with even a hint of impropriety and they will drop you as a patient if they sense that you are improperly seeking pain meds. In addition, a suggestion of “medication seeking behavior” in your medical record can badly damage your Social Security disability claim. If you sense that your use of pain medications is getting out of control, talk to the prescribing doctor about this immediately.
- keep a copy of all of your medical records and prescriptions as evidence of your long-standing relationship with your doctor and your pharmacist
The situation described in the Dallas TV station web site is rare but not impossible to recur. As is the case with any medical treatment, you need to be your own advocate and protect your interests by maintaining your own set of medical and medication records.