Happens all to frequently. I honestly can't tell you how many times over the years I've had a seeker ask for drugs, even after you've been in practice for a while.
Standard scenario(s)
- new patient, later in the day call(very often Friday afternoons or afterhours), complaint of usually new onset severe pain, can't make it to the office because they're a significant distance away currently due to work, and occassionally they're thow out the name of one of your current patients who supposedly reccommended you to them
- sometimes they'll also come up with something like "X number of years ago I had something similiar and my dentist where I used to live gave me some Y (insert name of a narcotic pain med) and it got me through the night/weekend"
Even sometimes, you'll have some of your established patients try this. Once again typically they'll call you late day and/or afterhours. Often they'll not be in the best of dental health so you'll be thinking that their complaint might be valid. This is where i've been "burned" more often. I'll call in some Vicodin (the narcotic that i'll typically Rx for my patients that I feel need it) and an antibiotic and then have my receptionist call them the next work day to get them in ASAP, and the seekers will either say "it feels all better" or fail their appointment, and then typically call me with a similar complaint within the following month or two. At that time, I'll tell them that I will only call them in an antibiotic because of what happened the previous time.
Story I've told before that was what we'd do in my residency from time to time when we were convinced we had a drug seeker - hospital policy at the time that we couldn't just ignore their call. We'd call them in an Rx for an NSAID (Voltaren) in suppository form(the hospital pharmacy readily stocked it)
That basically ended that particular person as a drug seeker from where I did my residency!