forged Dr notes

CalNevaMimi, LPN, LVN · Mar 17, 2015

"I weep for the future."

Farawyn · Mar 17, 2015

There is a website that provides doctor's notes. When caught they said they were a "joke" site, and the notes were not intended to be real.

If I was that doctor's office I would tell the patient to leave the practice.

Windchaser22 · Mar 17, 2015

We caught a father forging a physical. There is a spot for the office stamp that was blank. Called the office and they hadn't seen the child. The mother is an MD. :no:

SchoolNurseTXstyle · Mar 17, 2015

I have parents at my school even lying about their child's medical conditions. For example, a student on crutches for a "broken" hip who needed to be out of PE x 12 weeks. All I ever received was a vague medical note from ER that said "please excuse_____________on _________."

Mom could never produce a more specific note and told me that the ER did NOT recommend a follow up with an orthopedic specialist or any kind of follow up.

The kid is an attention seeker (hmmm, wonder where he got it from). Him and mom changed their story about mechanism of injury about 6 times, after 3 days - he dumped the crutches and was playing basketball. ON A BROKEN HIP?????

MollyJ · Mar 18, 2015

i have two thoughts about forged notes and I have personally received 2 or 3 myself over the years. A remnant of no child left behind is being super attentive to attendance and so sometimes when parents get caught in a corner, they lie. In our community, doctors are so accustomed to writing notes that they will write notes for parents for children they have not seen. I think this is an acknowledgement that they don't want to take their time or the parent's time to see the child. On occasion, I have called doctors offices and just said, "FYI this student has missed 30 days or 6 weeks of seat time."

OTOH, I never cease to be amazed at that small cadre of parents who will either not roll out of bed and get their kid to school OR who keep their children home for a variety of silly reasons that become ever more pathologic over time.

Lying usually reveals a much bigger problem than appears on its face.

guest83140 · Mar 19, 2015

I had a parent turn in a medication form with her signature on the bottom, lol. I said wow seriously you feel like the physician or think I wouldn't read the partially scribbled name. Yes, this next generation is scary.

SnowyJ, RN · Mar 19, 2015

YES! I had a parent forge a note from the MD stating it was ok to swim (school gym class) with ringworm.

They somehow cut and pasted the letterhead and re-copied it.

But it was worded strangely. Sure enough, I called and the MD office said he wasn't even seen.

SCARY indeed.

OldDude · Mar 19, 2015

I'm sure this happens more than we realize. We just catch the amateurs. In this day of electronic signatures I've received a lot a school excuses issued by the clerks up front that I'm positive the MD or NP or PA has no clue of. My personal all time favorite is the parent that tried to forge an immunization record....she tried to hand write/copy the office stamp...below the office stamp...but put the date of the immunization for her kindergartner on the meningitis line and left the dtap line blank.

Windchaser22 · Mar 20, 2015

Starting this Sept in NJ the docs/NPs doing sports physicals are required by law to do an online cardiac training module and then sign an attestation of completion and include it in each packet. We are not allowed to approve a student physical without the attestation.

We should add something like this to a job description: required to have detective and handwriting analysis skills necessary to ferret out liars, cheaters, fakers, and those who just forget on purpose to do what they are supposed to in the adult and professional adult populations. No overtime or stipend will be paid for these specialized skills, sorry.

NutmeggeRN, BSN · Mar 20, 2015

Starting this Sept in NJ the docs/NPs doing sports physicals are required by law to do an online cardiac training module and then sign an attestation of completion and include it in each packet. We are not allowed to approve a student physical without the attestation.
We should add something like this to a job description: required to have detective and handwriting analysis skills necessary to ferret out liars, cheaters, fakers, and those who just forget on purpose to do what they are supposed to in the adult and professional adult populations. No overtime or stipend will be paid for these specialized skills, sorry.

Yup, just another unfunded mandate!!!!

NanaPoo · Mar 20, 2015

I also had a parent write-in new immunizations on an old vaccination record.

It was painfully obvious. She wrote in new vaccination dates in the wrong spaces and the form was signed and dated YEARS ago. I just loved handling THAT one.