The way it's actually done is with a wink and a nod. The doctor signs the form, specifies the drug, and leaves it to the NP to fill in the patient's name, the length of treatment, period of administration and dosage measure. This is only done with drugs used to treat common ailments that have no attractiveness to the street market. So the doctor is technically authorizing the scrip, but the NP is distributing it as needed.

If any pain management is going on, that can't go through this protocol, not because the NPs aren't trustworthy, but because narcotics are such a hot commodity. Dozens of signed scrips for pain medications with no patient and no dosage limit specified? It's like a stack of signed blank checks, inviting burglary. If you're running a low-rent clinic, security for that kind of thing is out of the question. So pain management is still the realm of the doctor, for safety and liability reasons. Not to mention, a doctor could get his license yanked for that and maybe charged with a felony.

The trouble is, many criminals aren't that bright. Sometimes they get the idea that any drug is a gold mine, and so would make the effort to steal any signed scrip. They're right, up to a point: any prescription can be sold cut-rate to someone who needs it, with the cash gathered being pure profit for the criminal. So, to prevent break-ins and a host of other ills, the whole issue of shared prescription writing must be handled very discreetly.