fake prescriptions becoming more and more numerous and easier to obtain

Health Insurance detected seven million euros in false prescription fraud in 2022, according to information from franceinfo. But specialists suggest an amount that is actually ten times greater.

We tried the experiment: obtaining a fake prescription is relatively easy, quick and inexpensive. On an encrypted messaging service, we spot a prescription dealer, from whom we ask for Tramadol, an opioid for pain often misused because it is addictive and consumed like a drug.

About 20 minutes later and after paying ten euros on Paypal, we receive a prescription to print, in the name of a doctor who actually exists and whose name he found on the internet. The prescription: only four boxes of Tramadol, so as not to arouse the pharmacist’s suspicions. He tells us: “You make a credible signature and you can go to as many pharmacies as you want, you just have to print several times”. He also gives us two or three pieces of advice, for example “look sick but avoid overdoing it.”

Continuation of the experience in Agnès Buyck’s pharmacy, in Malakoff in Hauts-de-Seine. Before our order, she recognizes that “this raises eyebrows, because it is a medicine subject to a lot of diversion and misuse. But in this case, it is a doctor who is less than two km from the pharmacy, who we know a little and for whom we regularly have prescriptions, we are not going to be more suspicious than that. The prescription is not scary. I will give you your medication.”

And yet, this pharmacist has a sharp eye: she finds one or two false prescriptions every week. But the methods of counterfeiters are becoming more and more sophisticated.

“At one time, fake prescriptions were full of spelling mistakes or prescription errors. Now we see that they know the little tricks that would make us wince, and they manage to get around them one after the other.”

Agnès Buyck, pharmacist

franceinfo

With their false prescription, patients come to pharmacies either with their Carte Vitale, and they are reimbursed by Health Insurance, or (very often) with a false name and they claim to have lost their Carte Vitale. They then pay for the medicines, generally a few euros per box. Of these medications sold only by prescription, most are for personal use, to shoot codeine for example, or to lose weight with an antidiabetic.

Mainly painkillers and anxiolitics

Guillaume, pharmacist, shows us how easy it is to create, with the internet and word processing software, a fake prescription in five minutes flat. “Most of the attemptshe specifies, These are painkillers and anxiolitics. We will ‘drown’ the problematic molecules in a somewhat traditional general medicine prescription. This gives the impression that you went to the doctor for several things and took the opportunity to ask for, for example, medication for back pain. It’s the gateway to somewhat problematic molecules.”

Since Covid and the rise of teleconsultation, dematerialized prescriptions, written on a computer, have multiplied, and so have false prescriptions. Pharmacists come to regret the illegible handwriting of doctors.

AI to the rescue

Difficult for the moment to fight against these fakes. In Île-de-France, Health Insurance has created a bank of false prescriptions. It also provides for a secure digital prescription system, but not before 2025. In the meantime, there are some solutions such as Ordosafe, free software developed by Massy Bouhadoun for its fellow pharmacists: “We take a photo of the prescription, and it will compare it with the database listing all fake prescriptions, he explains. We are working with artificial intelligence to detect all anomalies, better than the human eye, right down to the prescriber’s calligraphy. And alert the pharmacist, who can make the right decision.”

Using a false prescription is punishable by a fine of €5,000. If you manufacture or tamper with a prescription, you risk a fine of €375,000 and five years in prison.