The problem with prescription medication abuse in this country is a serious concern. If not brought under control, it could drastically increase medical costs for years to come.
Back when doctors only wrote prescriptions with pen and paper, forgeries were a problem. As reported in www.kumv.com.
You could scratch out a zero, and add an 8, or something to increase the pills a patient was getting. Now doctors are moving to electronic prescriptions.
If you were to attempt a forgery or adulterate an electronic prescription, they would obviously have to have access to the database. The databases are quite secure.
There are extra stringent rules to fill prescriptions of controlled substances, like oxycodone or morphine. For controlled prescriptions, it still has to be printed out on paper, but this paper is tamper-proof, so if you try to photocopy it, it turns out as invalid.
But even if you're not purposely abusing prescription medications, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that accidental overdose deaths have risen 300 percent since 1999.
Electronic prescriptions processed through the national database Sure Scripts helps doctors keep track of multiple medications, even if they're prescribed by someone else.
Nowadays, doctors prescribe a medication on the computer, and it will alert me if the patient has an allergy to that medication. Or if the patient already has a medication in that class, it will also catch that and alert the user that maybe that's not the appropriate medication to use, which is very helpful..
Electronic prescriptions are more efficient. They're submitted to the pharmacy within five minutes, and the information is always legible.
If you or someone you care about has a problem with prescription medication abuse, please seek help immediately. A good drug course is a place to start. If you prefer to maintain anonymity, there are online drug educational classes too.