Prescription Drug Abuse: Prescription Drug Seekers On The Increase

As prescription drug abuse makes more and more headlines, drug addicts are targeting doctors and dentists more and more to “doctor shop” so that they can get more prescription drugs to feed their addiction.

The Atlanta Recovery Center Drug Rehab in Georgia advises doctors and dentists not to become unwitting enablers of drug addicts.

Mary Rieser, Executive Director of The Atlanta Recovery Center Drug Rehab, comments: “You may know a prescription drug seeker. These are individuals who try to get prescription medication that is either not medically indicated or prescribed for them. In other words, they want to abuse it.

“We have many drug addicts who confess that they have, in the past, actively pursued drugs by approaching dentists or doctors. The Atlanta Recovery Center Drug Rehab wants to educate professionals so that they can be aware of drug seeking behavior.

If you are a dentist, you probably get calls from time to time from these drug seekers. These are the individuals who are not your patients, but hope that you don’t realize it. They are likely to call on holiday weekends because they know that during the holidays, dentists, like everyone else, are preoccupied and might be covering for someone else. The holiday weekends are longer, requiring a larger prescription.

Prescription Drug Seeking Behavior

A typical conversation from a prescription seeker might go like this: ‘I was in your office a couple of weeks ago and I was supposed to have that tooth taken out.’ Acting as though you are sure to remember who they are, the seeker will try to steer you towards writing the pain prescription.

If you have not recognized them as a seeker by this time, other indicators in the conversation might be statements to the effect that they have tried Motrin in the past and it didn’t work or that they are allergic to pain medication of lower potency. The prescription seeker only wants ‘enough to get through the weekend’ promising that they will make an appointment with you the following week to get the dental problem addressed.

Chances are that if the practitioner has a big practice, they won’t remember the names of all patients.

Tips to avoid inadvertently writing pain prescriptions to persons seeking to get high:

If you can’t remember having ever seen the patient, then ask them what you look like, or what the office looks like if they say they have seen your associate. Wrong answers to these simple questions are sure tips that something is amiss.

Arrange to have access to your office computer from wherever you are so you can log in to your patient database to see if a caller really is a patient.

If someone comes to your office that you think might be abusing pain medications, learn the signs as listed above.

For information on drug addiction signs, call The Atlanta Recovery Center Drug Rehab at 1-877-236-3981.