Posts Tagged ‘Doctor shopping in florida’

You must be well versed with all the types of shopping that you can ever imagine but the term “doctor shopping” will come across as bolt from hell when you will get to know the bleak meaning behind the term. Doctor shopping refers to the practice of going from doctor to doctor to collect prescriptions so that illicit drugs can be bought legally. This drug is bought for personal use or for drug distribution and selling. In this way, it is very difficult to track down the drug abuser as they are doing the illegal work while still remaining in the realms of the law. If they are caught, they can easily get away with showing the prescription that the doctor has given them those medicines. The scenario is getting pathetic day by day and there is very less that any one can do about this issue. After all, one cannot follow every patient and find the fallacy behind the prescription. It is very sad to note that hundreds if not thousands of people in Florida alone are dying due to drug overdose. In Palm Beach Country alone, around 218 deaths occurred last year while this year the figure zoomed to 270. All these deaths were due to drug overdose. Of the total number of deaths in Florida, 63% of them were reported to be due to drug abuse. Now, these figures leave us in a very sorry state as there is very less that any one can do about this issue.

These figures leave us with a question in our minds: what should be done about this problem?

In the year 2002, a drug database proposal was given by the legislators. According to this proposal, whenever a patient goes to the doctor, his prescription will be updated in the database. In this way, police and detectives can keep a track of the people who take to doctor shopping. This would be the most effect weapon against the drug abusers. In this way, the police will have more evidence and the people who carry out the practice of doctor shopping and drug abuse will be easily arrested. This is the one and only way to fight against the evil practice.

Why didn’t it work? The proposal was reject on the grounds that the idea of keeping track of the prescriptions invades with the privacy of the people who take drugs. If the database happens to come across a hacker, the medical history of any patient can be known easily. This practice will invade the privacy of medical profile of patients. This is the only reason for the rejection of the proposal which could have saved many lives.