I usually confine my comments about work to bitching about my employees. I tend to not talk about the customers as I like my job and getting sued isn't conducive to job security.


My customers are more precisely known as patients. Which is kind of ironic because most tend to have none of that particular quality. Cranky injured people have the right to be bitchy and since I personally don't have to deal with their whiney asses, I don't give a shit. Besides, people in pain may be short tempered but are normally grateful for the help and are seldom just plain nasty.

However, the folks that do bring sharpened tongues, and occasionally sharpened knives, to their appointments are the drug seekers.

This charming group of folks will lie, manipulate and steal to get their drug of choice and if you happen to be between them and their goal, you will be run over like the dog they think you are. I am fortunate enough not to have to deal with these people directly very often. When I do, it has usually gotten to the point where the city's men in blue have to be called in to taser the fuckers and drag them across my nice Italian tile floor kicking and screaming.

Since we are all not cruel and evil bastards and my practitioners have taken that pesky little Hippocratic Oath, we do provide drugs for pain relief when warranted. However, they are carefully monitored and patients on long term drug therapy have to sign a contract agreeing to be drug tested and take the medication as prescribed. This has led to its own little problems and hilarious situations. I have decided to share a few of the more ingenious excuses and plots with you kids in the coming days.


I will start with Mrs. Olnrickedy. Mrs. O looks like a typical grandma that you would expect to see mixing up a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies for the kiddies. But looks can be deceiving. She came to us severely addicted to Percodan. She was easy to spot as are most patients that come in stating they just happen to be allergic to every non narcotic pain reliever known to man and can ONLY be helped by -------- (Inserts drug of choice here). The deal with Mrs O that makes us all sympathize is that she really does have a very painful chronic condition. Although you want to be able to give the patient some help, the more opiates she takes, the less they seem to work for her. So she resorts to using tricks in order to get the extra she "needs".
I have to hand it to Mrs. O that she was pretty clever and she really let the grandma look work for her for an awfully long time. However, they all get caught eventually. It is just a matter of time. It appears Mrs O had gone to kinkos with one of our prescriptions. She whited out the date and made a few dozen copies. She would carefully go over the writing with ink so it looked new and date the script with the same pen. She also, and this is most important, paid cash for her drugs at different pharmacies. This is the detail that most drug abusers miss. Even if you go to a different pharmacy, if insurance is playing the bill, they are going to question why Dr. Feelgood is prescribing 200 oxycontin per month. But Mrs O didn't take the chance. She was smart...but not quite smart enough. What she didn't realize is that pharmacies often send faxes to offices requesting refills when a patient requests one but have none left. Apparently she was calling around her usual pharmacies trying to gather up her drugs like a little squirrel for the holidays and two pharmacists faxed over requests the same day. Two or three phone calls later, a few copies of prescriptions and an embarrassed Mrs O on the phone and her little game was over.

I strongly suspect she will be spending this Christmas in rehab.

Have a great week kids.