ELLSWORTH, Maine — Police here have charged a local woman with acquiring drugs by deception after she allegedly added a zero to a prescription for a painkiller used to treat opiate addiction.
Ellsworth police say Kayla Massicotte, 22, of Ellsworth turned in a prescription intended for four Suboxone tablets at the Hannaford pharmacy on Aug. 1. Doctors usually write a numerical and spelled out prescription, such as “100” and “one hundred,” to prevent patients from tampering with prescriptions.
Her doctor had written both “4” and “four” on the prescription, said Officer Kelvin Mote, but Massicotte added a zero and the letters “ty,” resulting in a prescription that read “40” and “fourty.”
“So now you have a misspelled word, but it was slight enough it got missed at first,” Mote said Friday. “But after the fact, it was found out by the pharmacy.”
Mote said prescription tampering is not an unusual method for stealing drugs, but that it doesn’t happen often in Ellsworth.
Massicotte was summoned for the felony charge Thursday, and her first appearance in Ellsworth District Court is on Oct. 25. Acquiring drugs by deception is a Class C crime, punishable by up to five years incarceration and a $5,000 fine.
Follow Mario Moretto on Twitter at @riocarmine.
I wonder if MaineCare paid for those pills. If so, she should be required to pay back every penny along with whatever punishment she gets for her crime. Hopefully it will be more than a slap on the wrist……
bet you it did. bet she is on disability too.
She should lose all future GA benefits.
This Just In! Defendant’s English teacher will not be present during jury selection.
If the law changed to allow electronic prescription submission by medical providers, this could be prevented too.
what law is this, my doctor electromically sends prescrptions to the pharmacy, right from the computer in the exam room.
It applies to certain drugs. The ones with certain addictive qualities.
Scheduled drugs and others must be be handwritten or typed but cannot be sent electronically thus leaving open the possibility of altering the prescription. It would be much safer to send them electronically (accuracy) and with cloud based practice management programs, at least one I know of, only providers with the proper program permission can send prescriptions so it is less likely office personnel could write them either.