Just like it’s important to trust your automotive insurance agent, in the world of health it is important to trust your doctor. In both cases this isn’t always easy and there are corrupt people to work around. However, in the case of unethical doctors, they are ruining the lives of the patient.
One of the fastest growing addictions is the addiction to prescription medication. While this shouldn’t come as a shock to most, there are those out there who weren’t aware of the massive amount of time and money that people are spending on pain killers and anti-anxiety drugs. Here’s how the system works:
If simply the patient is corrupt, he or she will go to a doctors office and ask for pain meds. She will do this with multiple doctors, making sure they aren’t aware of his or her involvement with any other physician. Then the patient will pharmacy hop (going to many different pharmacies) to fill his or her prescriptions there. He or she will pay cash for some, and have the insurance pay for the rest. In some cases they will steal prescription pads or try to phone in their own medication. Many of them are well trained and hard to spot.
However, this pales in comparison to the doctors who help these addicts feed their need. The addicts will come in and pay cash for an office visit, then the doctor will prescribe them whatever drugs they say they need and will allow no refills on the medication. This is to ensure that the patient comes back and pays for another office visit. The problem is that since the prescription is legit a pharmacist has very little choice but to fill it.
The drugs rings are becoming more and more prevalent these days, and unless corrupt health practices are prevented this will be very difficult to stop.