Most of us have a primary doctor and a specialist or two, such as a dermatologist, that we see on a fairly regular basis, and they likely prescribe a prescription or two from time to time. If you have more serious health concerns, however, your primary doctor may recommend a number of specialists to help you specifically address specific concerns (and they will prescribe medications accordingly).
This is all normal conduct, but when someone specifically seeks the care of multiple doctors as a means of obtaining multiple prescriptions for powerful prescription medications (typically controlled substances, such as pain meds, anti-anxiety meds, and other medications with serious potential for abuse and addiction), it is known as doctor shopping, and it can lead to criminal charges with serious attendant penalties and fines.
Manipulating the System
Doctor shopping is a means of manipulating the medical system in order to obtain the drugs the doctor shopper seeks. Often, doctor shopping involves providing falsified information to obtain the desired prescription, but doctor shopping can go so far as hurting oneself purposefully in order to obtain a specific kind of drug. All of the following practices are commonly associated with doctor shopping:
Falsely claiming to have lost a prior prescription or falsely claiming that a prior prescription was stolen
Denying having received similar prescriptions from other doctors
Claiming never to have taken the medication in question prior to the current prescription
Lying about one’s physical symptoms and/or falsifying one’s medical history
Another common tactic involved in doctor shopping is changing primary doctors frequently for any one of the following claimed reasons:
Communication issues
Scheduling issues
Distance issues (the office is too far away)
The more doctors involved, the less chance there is of spotting someone’s drug-seeking, but doctor hopping is closely associated with doctor shopping.
Pharmacists
Many people fail to realize that pharmacists have considerable access when it comes to their histories. In fact, the pharmacy team can pull up a history of anyone’s prescription fills for controlled substances, including those prescribed by various doctors and filled by various pharmacies. This means a pharmacist may be privy to information about your use of controlled substances and may report any suspected abuse to the authorities. Although you may have obtained the prescriptions in question from doctors – the way you are intended to – this does not make alleged doctor shopping any less illegal.