How to address and prevent prescription fraud
The Board has been notified by practitioners that clients or third parties have presented prescriptions they did not issue to pharmacies.
Reporting obligations
[Amended since original publication in the Board's newsletter]: Veterinary practitioners must take action in such cases. Under section 26(1) of the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Regulations 2017, Notification of fraudulent obtaining of order or prescription, 'A registered medical practitioner, pharmacist, veterinary practitioner or dentist who suspects or has reason to believe that a person has obtained from the practitioner by means of a false pretence an order or prescription for a Schedule 9 poison, Schedule 8 poison or Schedule 4 poison must immediately inform the Secretary [of the Department of Health] and a police officer of that suspicion or belief.' If you were alerted to the fraud by a pharmacist, you may be able to coordinate this reporting with the pharmacist.
Criteria for lawful prescriptions
In addition, veterinary practitioners have an obligation to write scripts in the correct format. The Medicines and Poisons Regulation Branch of the Department of Health has a factsheet called Criteria for lawful prescriptions: Requirements in Victoria (Word download from Department of Health documents and forms on drugs and poisons obligations). This covers requirements for handwritten prescriptions for schedule 4 and 8 poisons, and the strict criteria for computer-generated prescriptions.
Veterinary practitioners who issue prescriptions to clients can help guard against fraud by sending a copy to the pharmacy electronically and then posting or delivering a copy of the script.
Should you see your client again?
Recently a veterinary practitioner asked the Board whether they should see a client who had been reported by a pharmacy for prescription fraud. The pharmacy had refused to fill a script for the client because they had copied a genuine script in an attempt to obtain repeat medications for the animal. Subsequently, the client booked a consultation with the vet so they could obtain a script for their animal.
The medication in question was not a drug of dependence. If it had been, we would have referred the vet to the case study on warning signs about drug-seeking clients published in the Board’s newsletter in November 2023. Vets need to be alert for such persons and it would be inadvisable to issue any script in such cases.
As this case did not involve a drug of dependence, the Board advised the vet to exercise their professional judgement as to how to respond to the consultation/script request - keeping the wellbeing of the relevant animal in mind when making their decision.
Possible alternatives to issuing a script include:
- directly dispensing the medication to the client if it is not a drug of dependence and the vet has established there is a therapeutic need for the animal to receive this medication
- the vet notifying the client in writing that they have decided to cease providing veterinary services to them (Guideline 1.5).
The veterinary practitioner should clearly explain in the veterinary medical record how and why they chose to manage the situation in the way they decided.
Obligations of pharmacies
[Regulation number corrected since newsletter originally published] Under regulation 26(1) of the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Regulations 2017, pharmacists are required to notify Victoria Police and/or the Medicines and Poisons Regulation Branch (MPR Branch) of the Department of Health when a person is suspected to have obtained or attempted to obtain a Schedule 4, 8 or 9 poison by means of a false pretence (including the presentation of forged or fraudulently altered prescriptions).
Relevant MPR Branch web pages are:
More information
You can submit questions about veterinary practitioners’ responsibilities under Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances legislation to the Department of Health via the Medicines and Poisons Regulation team's enquiry form: https://forms.business.gov.au/smartforms/landing.htm?formCode=mpr-enquiry
Relevant guidelines