New Jersey Rx Form To Beat Fraud

New Jersey is launching a new prescription form to protect against theblack market in fraudulent prescriptions, which costs Medicaid and other programs $1 billion a year. After a three-month phase-in period (the start date is yet to be set) these will become the only forms which pharmacies will accept.

The forms are numbered and bound like a checkbook, and cannot be photocopied or erased. Doctors will be required to notify the state within 72 hours if they are stolen; the state will then tell pharmacists in the same way that credit card companies tell merchants about stolen cards.

The program is the first to deal with the totality of the problem, and applies to all prescriptions written by every prescriber. Doctors will still be able to phone in their prescriptions as long as they give their identification numbers when they call.