CANTON, Ga. -- Investigators are hoping to close a loophole that they say allowed a man to scam a metro Atlanta hospital into prescribing him powerful opioids for almost a year.
Dustin James Funk, 33, is facing 79 felony charges, accused of using different aliases to obtain prescription pain killers such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, valium and tramadol.
Funk, a Carrollton, Ga., resident, was arrested by members of the Cherokee Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad after a weeks-long investigation.
Investigators said Funk didn’t have an elaborate scheme, but they said he figured out a simple way to exploit a loophole that exists even now, in the midst of an opioid crisis that is killing people and tearing apart families.
Doctors and nurses at Northside Hospital Cherokee tipped off authorities, suspicious about a man who had been showing up at the emergency room two and three times a month since July, 2017, complaining of pain. Investigators said the hospital staff eventually realized it was the same man every time, using a different name every time. As a result, the man's fake name each time did not show up in the system, and doctors thought they were prescribing the painkillers for him for the first time.
Investigators said Funk knew that doctors typically have no way to verify the identity of a person seeking emergency care..
“He fabricated a name and date of birth, for the sole purpose of getting the pain medication,” said Phil Price, commander of the Cherokee Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad.
Price said Funk used 28 fake names to get 29 prescriptions from the hospital doctors. But then he’d go to pharmacies and use his real name and ID to fill the prescriptions, as if he were simply picking them up ,and paying for them, for someone else.
Price believes Funk was scamming other hospitals across Metro Atlanta the same way.
“What we see almost every day is somebody comes up with a different way of approaching, of attacking, the system,” Price said. “That’s what this gentleman did. He attacked the system and he saw a weakness, and so he exploited that.”
11Alive has contacted Northside Hospital about any safeguards they may be putting in place, to prevent someone else from attempting the same alleged scam.
