What Is Doctor-Shopping?
What exactly is doctor-shopping you may ask. This involves the practice of making multiple appointments and visiting numerous physicians and specialists in order to obtain multiple prescription medications that will be used, abused or sold for profit. It is far more common than most people know and the majority of doctor-shoppers are drug-seeking people who are addicted to specific types of medications, like pain killers, or they will supply other people those drugs. So, for some, it’s a business, and in many cases a very profitable one, bringing in 6 figures annually.
They Are Pros!
These people are professional at acting like a new patient, or visiting a doctor from out of town and exaggerating or faking medical problems to obtain prescription medications. Can you imaging how good you have to be at faking ADHD symptoms in front of a physician who knows all about ADHD and you are so convincing that the doctor writes a prescription? Why would people fake ADHD? Because psychostimulants are a hot commodity right now and while they calm down and relax children, they have the opposite effect on adults, and speed them up, like amphetamines do. How about being so persuasive about faking symptoms of pain that the doctor writes a prescription for pain medications on a monthly basis?
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What Kind of Drugs Are They Seeking?
The majority of doctor-shoppers are looking for very specific drugs and will find the right doctor or specialist to target in order to obtain them. Most are seeking narcotics (Oxycontin), stimulants (Vyvance), barbiturates (Seconal), benzodiazepines (Xanax), tranquilizers (Lunesta) and other psychiatric medications including antidepressants, antianxiety drugs and antipsychotics. Do you think you could fake psychiatric symptoms to obtain psychotropic drugs?
Characteristics of the Doctor-Shopper
Who are these people and what do they look like? Where do they come from? A sad fact is that some of them are actually healthcare professionals who know the system so well that it’s easy for them to get the drugs that they want. They are very familiar with illnesses and symptoms. They know exactly which kinds of medications they are looking for, and by name. On the other hand, some people will drop street names of drugs they are seeking. The try to refill their prescription long before it’s due. They lie and say they lost their meds, that they were stolen or left out of town. Most people will decline a physical exam and just insist on the medications. They may also show up to the emergency room at 2am complaining of back or tooth pain. All of these are red flags.
Don’t Doctors Know Better?
Maybe not so much in the past, but they are getting educated now, especially during the horrible opioid epidemic in the United States. When physicians don’t have the patient’s record, because they’re from out of town, he or she must rely on the honesty of the patient. Some people will fill their prescriptions at multiple pharmacies and pay cash to avoid paper trails. There are, of course, some physicians who are not up to date on the drug-seeking behaviors and crisis in the U.S., so they may be an attractive soft target. Other doctors simply get duped from dishonest patients. Unfortunately, there are also doctors who are making a profit on other people’s pain and suffering and they are in it for financial gain. And there is one more interesting reason. Some physicians may experience countertransference or physician codependence and get drawn into the patient’s system of denial and dishonesty.
Final Words on Recognizing the Doctor-Shopping Patient
Doctor-shopping is real, takes place daily, is more common than we think and is responsible for the death of countless people around the country. Some doctor-shoppers are very skilled at this form of deviance and make a living obtaining and selling drugs. Others are addicted. Some will die. There are red flags to watch out for and the medical community is clamping down on this trend and educating doctors to be on the lookout.
(NOTE: Interested in Nursing CEUs? Checkout my Nursing CEUs on CEU Academy and try a FREE CEU today!)