Verification of prescriptions

[Kamatayan]

How do the salespeople(politically correct)sa Mercury, etc verify that a prescription is really authentic ??? What if I printed a doctors prescription pad and just jot down some drugs in there (assuming I know what to write), would they find out ???

[Ira]

For non-regulated drugs like Amoxycillin, I don't have the slightest clue. For regulated drugs like Phenobarbital, we have S2 licenses, issued by the Dangerous Drugs Board every January. I believe drugstores have access to the list of doctors with S2 to check whether the name , the license number, the PTR and the S2 matches. However, isn't it cheaper to just go to the doctor and ask for prescriptions rather than spend that much money to make the prescription pads?

We've had patients who have tried to forge doctors' signatures. Drug stores occassionally catch them and report them to us.

[Kamatayan]

Why ??? Let me cite an example from a movie, there was a guy who was faking chest pains I think or something and he wanted the doctor to give him a prescription for morphine. But the doctor knows that he's just faking it and he's just addicted to morphine (or maybe he wants to sell it on the black market). In the movie he just did a "favor" for the doctor for the prescriptions... But what if he just faked the prescriptions... Would it work ???

Let's say I already have one prescription so I'd just copy that prescription and make several copies (the drugstore retains the prescription for regulated drugs, tama ba ?)...

As for faking signatures, how does the store authenticate them ? Daming doctor sa mundo ah... Do they have signature files of each doctor ???

[Ira]

There are regulated drugs, and there are strictly regulated drugs. The Dangerous Drugs Board has yellow forms which you have to specially apply for, in order to prescribe really heady stuff like morphine. Each doctor who applies for it has issued numbers, duly signed and authorized by whoever heads the DDB. When there is a need to prescribe morphine, the doctor has to use this yellow form (not the ordinary prescription pad), which are numbered serially of course, to give to the patient. The drug store then checks the authenticity of these numbers before giving it to whoever's buying. It's a centrally-controlled form, and very, very difficult to obtain. Not all doctors have this yellow form, and those who do take very special care of this form...they don't just give it out just because you want them to. Tough luck, Kamats. :)