This study investigated attitudes toward buprenorphine maintenance treatment (BMT) among general practitioners (GPs) and their maintained patients' propensity to turn to several prescribers (doctor shopping), among a sample of 345 GPs prescribing BMT in South-Eastern France. Survey data were anonymously matched to administrative data that provided information about GPs' patients. A simultaneous equation model suggests that GPs' attitude influenced doctor shopping, not the reverse. Doctor shopping was lower among GPs who reported inducting BMT with 8 mg of buprenorphine per day or more, and was higher for GPs endorsing a stringent attitude toward patients. Thus doctor shopping should not be understood exclusively as a deviant behaviour. It is partially physician-driven, and further research is needed to assess whether it reflects patients' dissatisfaction toward inappropriate care supply and the difficulty to establish a good therapeutic relationship between an opiate-dependent patient and a general practitioner.