Prescription Fraud

The offense of obtaining a prescription drug, most often a controlled substance such as an opioid or benzodiazepine, through deception directed at the prescription itself rather than at a prescriber's clinical judgment. Common methods include forging a physician's signature or a prescription pad, altering a legitimate prescription's quantity, dosage or refill count after it is written, and calling or submitting a fraudulent prescription to a pharmacy while impersonating a prescriber's office. Prescription fraud is treated in criminal law as distinct from doctor shopping, in which a patient obtains multiple genuine, unaltered prescriptions from separate legitimate providers without disclosing the others; prescription fraud instead involves falsifying the prescription document or the identity of its issuer. Most United States states criminalize prescription fraud within their own controlled substances act, and federal law separately prohibits acquiring a controlled substance through fraud, deception, misrepresentation or subterfuge. Pharmacists are typically the first point of detection, trained to recognize irregularities such as inconsistent handwriting, an unfamiliar prescriber, or a dosage inconsistent with the patient's known history.