The No Insurance "Conundrum"

A woman brought in a script tonight. After 5. She was a new patient, so I gathered all of the pertinent information.

Name
DOB
Address
Phone
Insurance (none)
Drug Allergies
etc

Lack of insurance is always the first red flag when you’re questioning a prescription. Why do people not ever get prescriptions for anything but pain medications and benzodiazepines when they don’t have insurance? It’s one of life’s great mysteries (not).

Red flag #2: Her DOB was written on the top right corner of the Rx in a different pen than the Rx. This means she tried to take it to another pharmacy, who gathered all of her information and for some reason gave the prescription back to her.

Red Flag #3: The prescription was obviously for a controlled substance. Which controlled substance, you ask? “Percacet.” Are there really any doctors out there that misspell Percocet?

Red Flag #4: The quantity was originally written for #30. Someone changed the 3 to a 9, and wrote the word “ninty” underneath the altered quantity. The word “ninty” appears to be written in a different pen than the prescription. Either this doctor is a really bad speller, or someone just tried to alter a prescription.

Red Flag #5: The script was written 3 days ago, but was brought into me after 5pm. And she needs it NOW.

Red Flag #6: Patient is trashy and pushy. People that have legitimate prescriptions are rarely pushy. They understand if I have a question on the prescription and need to contact the doctor.

However, the anti-red flag was when she asked me to page the doctor on call. If it was the doctor that wrote the Rx she wanted me to verify it, if another prescriber was on call she wanted me to call tomorrow. I can’t really figure out what this means. Unless the doctor’s kids are kidnapped by this lady and she’s instructed to verify any and all forged prescriptions that pharmacies call on?

I called and the doctor that wrote it was NOT on call, so I photocopied the Rx and sent a fax to the office to verify it in the morning.

I will be curious to see what happens.

If it is legitimate, I’ll feel like a jackass.