surgeon orders prescription drugs for himself

foolsgold

foolsgold

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St. Petersburg, Florida -- A Bay Pines VA Hospital surgeon faces multiple counts of fraud for allegedly ordering prescription pills for himself.

Pinellas County Sheriff's investigators say they received information on Jan. 28 that Dr. Richard Carpenter had been calling in prescriptions for Valium (Diazepam) for himself since October 2012.

Authorities say Carpenter used the name of a doctor he knew and their DEA number to get the prescriptions illegally. Carpenter also then used his health care insurance to off-set the cost of the prescription.

In all, investigators say Carpenter obtained at least 500 Valium 5mg pills and had attempted to get more before his arrest.

Carpenter, 58, has been charged with five counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud and one count of attempting to obtain a controlled substance by fraud.

http://www.wtsp.com/rss/article/295...eed:+wtsp/crime+(WTSP.com+10+News+Crime+News)
 
This is probably a dumb question seeing as the article pretty much covers it but I've always wondered - Can doctors write themselves prescriptions? I mean as a whole though, not just controlled substances.
 
No, doctors can not prescribe themselves anything. Controlled or not, they need to have another doctor prescribe it for them.
 
^Not true (at least in my state). Writing your own controls would raise some eyebrows to say the least.
 
Funny how even a doctor needs to steal to stay well. Pretty shady though a Surgeon gives a Very good drug for medical issues a possible worse rep than it already had. If he was selling them what a dumbass he could have At least called in 10mg tablets but I'm guessing these were for personal use? Fucking stupid.
 
Diazepam is not very expensive. If he wanted to do it "properly" he could have asked one of his doctor friends to do it for him.
He sounds like an idiot.
 
MushroomRyder25 said:
This is probably a dumb question seeing as the article pretty much covers it but I've always wondered - Can doctors write themselves prescriptions? I mean as a whole though, not just controlled substances.
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I'm in Australia so not sure what the case is in the US, but...

My dad is a doctor and he told me that about a decade ago doctors could write prescriptions for whomever they wanted, including themselves and family. Now (probably due to abuse of that system) they are neither allowed to prescribe to themselves or family.

Ie: When I was down at my holiday house I forgot to take my anti-depressants with me, but my Dad couldn't legally write me a script to get filled a the local pharmacy (because we share the same last name). He had to call a doctor-friend to fax through a script.

nb: My Dad also said that although it's not allowed you can actually write scripts for close family as long as they don't have the same Surname, as the pharmacist will never know, or bother to check.

It's pretty normal though for doctors to ask other physicians for whatever prescriptions they need. So the system is still ripe for potential abuse.

EDIT: The laws must be the same in the US, otherwise the guy wouldn't have bothered to fraudulently use another doctor's DEA number.
 
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You don't need a DEA number to prescribe diazepam. You only need it for schedule II substances I think.

T. Calderone said:
He sounds like an idiot.
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He sounds like one of those people who get so addicted to benzos that they make really dumb decisions to get their hands on as much as possible. I bet he already had a real prescription for like a gram a month, but it wasn't enough. I don't get it: it's a really dull drug.
 
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You absolutely need a DEA # to write controls. Strangely, CV's don't need an rx, just a pharmacy willing to submit a biweekly ledger to the DEA. Most pharmacies don't want to deal with the BS however.
 
23536 said:
He sounds like one of those people who get so addicted to benzos that they make really dumb decisions to get their hands on as much as possible. I bet he already had a real prescription for like a gram a month, but it wasn't enough. I don't get it: it's a really dull drug.
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Yeah this is most likely true. It wouldn't be hard in the slightest for a surgeon to get his hands on a normal script of diazepam, hell you could just swipe diazepam ampoules from the theatre, most likely he had a *raging* addiction that required procedures above and beyond even that. :\

From the picture in the article he looks pretty trodden on.
 
^As I previously stated, there is no federal statue against self-prescription. States may vary, but unless it is a control, no one cares.
 
wow, sucks he is going through all of this over a CIV rx drug. ive bought plenty of benzos from various countries and valium is by far the cheapest. he could have saved a lot of headache and just did it that way, no DEA number, no rx. maybe he felt that since he is a medical professional its no big deal to use another drs dea number? i know a PA that gets his wife adderral from one of his dr friends for her MS. and thats a CII drug too.
 
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