Is it ok for a Pharmacist to ask for a control prescription to be faxed???

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Ok yesterday roughly about 4 pm I take a verbal telephone prescription from a nurse who calls in of all things a Norco 10/325mg script and a Xanax 2 mg script- the nurse gives me all the information(DEA/office #) etc and it's from an MD that I never heard of- but after taking the prescription I discover the patient is not in my database even with a central search. I call the office back and the spoke with the nurse and I tell her politely that this person is not in my database and with it being nearly close to the time that MD's office close plus the fact it's a holiday weekend I asked her if she would kindly fax over the prescription due to the nature of the prescriptions that were phoned in plus the fact that I have no data on the patient.
The "nurse" said the MD does not like to fax prescriptions over and that telephone prescriptions are allowed to be called in if the office chooses and then I asked to speak to the MD and she cut me off and told me that she will ask the MD if she could fax over the prescription and hung up the phone.
About 15 minutes later the "wife" of the person called and asked if the MD had called in her husbands prescriptions- I told her the MD called but I was waiting for a faxed prescription to come through. I proceeded to ask the wife- if her husband had filled at any CVS before and she said "NO" they had just moved to the area- however, what made me feel uncomfortable was the wife while getting the information(address/phone#, etc) was quick to tell me that they will pay cash for the meds and asked me what color were the hydrocdones- also based on the address she gave me their were a lot of pharmacies that were a lot closer to her.
As of 9pm yesterday I never got a fax back from the MD's office- so was I ok for asking for an MD to fax me a prescription to the pharmacy or did I cross the line? Normally, every weekend we get some bogus(forged) prescription called in and it's always Xanax/Soma/ or Norco.

Sounds like many red flags.
I would definitely ask for a hard copy. Completely reasonable request.

Definitely shady... it's definitely ok to ask for them to fax the Rx, remember that you don't have to fill the prescription if you don't feel comfortable it's legit. If the nurse had a problem with that I would tell her to call another pharmacy. Theoretically all it takes to call in an Rx over the phone is the Dr.'s information which is easily obtainable...

Asking for a fax is not something that a legitimate prescriber should be troubled by, especially round my parts (NY), where they would have to provide us with the serial number of the Rx anyway and ensure we recieve the hard copy within 72 hours.

i would've google searched on the MD and see if that is the correct number to the office too...

Originally Posted by dkphx

i would've google searched on the MD and see if that is the correct number to the office too...

At least in CA it's easy to look up licensure info on MDs and NPI search to verify last known practice address, etc.

Originally Posted by Rxnupe

Ok yesterday roughly about 4 pm I take a verbal telephone prescription from a nurse who calls in of all things a Norco 10/325mg script and a Xanax 2 mg script- the nurse gives me all the information(DEA/office #) etc and it's from an MD that I never heard of- but after taking the prescription I discover the patient is not in my database even with a central search. I call the office back and the spoke with the nurse and I tell her politely that this person is not in my database and with it being nearly close to the time that MD's office close plus the fact it's a holiday weekend I asked her if she would kindly fax over the prescription due to the nature of the prescriptions that were phoned in plus the fact that I have no data on the patient.
The "nurse" said the MD does not like to fax prescriptions over and that telephone prescriptions are allowed to be called in if the office chooses and then I asked to speak to the MD and she cut me off and told me that she will ask the MD if she could fax over the prescription and hung up the phone.
About 15 minutes later the "wife" of the person called and asked if the MD had called in her husbands prescriptions- I told her the MD called but I was waiting for a faxed prescription to come through. I proceeded to ask the wife- if her husband had filled at any CVS before and she said "NO" they had just moved to the area- however, what made me feel uncomfortable was the wife while getting the information(address/phone#, etc) was quick to tell me that they will pay cash for the meds and asked me what color were the hydrocdones- also based on the address she gave me their were a lot of pharmacies that were a lot closer to her.
As of 9pm yesterday I never got a fax back from the MD's office- so was I ok for asking for an MD to fax me a prescription to the pharmacy or did I cross the line? Normally, every weekend we get some bogus(forged) prescription called in and it's always Xanax/Soma/ or Norco.

This is reasonable. We don't fill "cocktail" medications outside of our local prescribers. If you don't feel comfortable as a pharmacist, then don't fill it.