Patient Steals Shawnee Doc's Information To Get Prescription Drugs

Fake prescriptions are showing up at pharmacies in the metro and surrounding areas.

Investigators say an emergency room doctor at St. Anthony Shawnee Hospital called police after discovering that her Drug Enforcement Administration (D.E.A) registration number had been compromised.

DEA registration numbers are given to health care providers in an effort to track controlled substances prescribed to patients.

Shawnee Police Detective Jason Crouch says it is unclear how the potential suspect, a patient, got access to the number, but that patient has called in prescription to pharmacies in Shawnee, Seminole, Tecumseh, and Oklahoma City in the last month.

According to investigators, at least 10 names were used to fill the fake prescriptions for everything from codeine, to tramadol, and even hydrocodone in the last month.

"It looks like the prescriptions were maybe family members of the patient," Crouch explained. "So it could be a close group of people that are all working together."

Investigative reports show only a handful of the fake prescriptions were rejected and one in particular alerted the doctor to the fraudulent activity.

"[The suspect] called in narcotics for a juvenile, so [the pharmacist] contacted the doctor and she said, ‘No, I didn’t write that,’" Crouch explained.

Since then, police have identified a potential suspect and hope an arrest will be next

"It is definitely a bad deal, when they get ahold of doctor's numbers and they are able to do this," Crouch said.