Prescription fraud in California does not require forging anything. State law bars obtaining, or trying to obtain, controlled substances or a prescription for them by fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, or subterfuge, or by concealing a material fact, which is how getting overlapping prescriptions from several doctors without telling them (“doctor shopping”) can be charged. Forging or altering a prescription for a narcotic drug is a separate, more specific crime.

What section 11173 prohibits

Health and Safety Code section 11173 contains four separate prohibitions:

  • (a) Obtaining or attempting to obtain controlled substances, or procuring or attempting to procure their administration or a prescription for them, by fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, or subterfuge, or by concealing a material fact.
  • (b) Making a false statement in any prescription, order, report, or record required by California’s controlled substances law.
  • (c) Falsely claiming to be a physician, dentist, pharmacist, veterinarian, registered nurse, physician’s assistant, manufacturer, wholesaler, or other authorized person in order to obtain controlled substances.
  • (d) Putting a false or forged label on a package or container holding controlled substances.

Subdivision (a) reaches attempts as well as completed acts, so you do not have to have walked out of a pharmacy with the drug, or even received a prescription, for the conduct to be covered. A related section, Health and Safety Code section 11174, separately bars giving a false name or false address in connection with the prescribing, furnishing, administering, or dispensing of a controlled substance.

Why doctor shopping can fit without a forged document

“Doctor shopping” usually means getting prescriptions for the same or a similar drug from more than one prescriber while keeping each from learning about the others. That can fit the “concealment of a material fact” language in section 11173(a) even when every prescription is genuine and nothing was forged or altered, and giving false answers when a prescriber or pharmacy asks about other prescriptions can fit its misrepresentation language. Under the concealment prong, the hidden fact has to be material, and it has to have been concealed.

How this differs from simply having no prescription

Section 11173 is about how the drug or the prescription was obtained. Simply possessing certain controlled substances without a valid prescription is a separate offense, for example under Health and Safety Code section 11350, covered on the firm’s page about prescription drug charges. The two can come up in the same case, or separately.

How this differs from forging a prescription

Forging or altering a prescription for a narcotic drug, passing a forged or altered one, or obtaining or possessing a narcotic drug through a forged, fictitious, or altered prescription is a separate crime under Health and Safety Code section 11368, which the statute punishes by six months to one year in county jail, or by state prison. Section 11173 does not require any forgery: two genuine prescriptions from two different doctors can still fall under its concealment language.

What the penalty depends on

Section 11173 does not state its own punishment. A separate section, Health and Safety Code section 11371.1, punishes a knowing violation of section 11173 or 11174 involving the drugs it lists. Those include the Schedule II substances in section 11055(b), (c), and (d), among them oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl, and amphetamine, and narcotic drugs in Schedules III to V. For those drugs, the punishment is up to one year in county jail or imprisonment under Penal Code section 1170(h), so the offense can be treated as either a felony or a misdemeanor (Penal Code section 17).

What matters if you are facing this

  • Whether you told each prescriber about your other prescriptions, appointments, or medications.
  • What you actually said or wrote on any intake form, pharmacy form, or insurance form.
  • Whether any document was altered, or whether the prescriptions themselves were genuine.
  • Pharmacy and prescriber records, since those often form the basis of the accusation.
  • Any legitimate medical reason for multiple prescriptions, such as separate specialists treating separate conditions.

Getting help

Whether the facts in your case amount to fraud, concealment, or a legitimate medical picture depends on the actual records and what was disclosed to whom. Contact the Law Offices of David S. Chesley to go over your prescription and pharmacy history: (800) 755-5174.