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Just curious. How extensive is diversion and/or abuse of controls among pharmacy staff? It seems like it would be a larger problem than it is. Does anybody have direct experience with this?
Diversion and abuse
- Thread starter kkelloww
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kkelloww said:
At a retail setting..I can't tell you.
But at a hospital with perpetual inventory with electronic signature for each item of controlled substance we dispense, diversion of large quantity is difficult. Also, since purchase is reconciled with utilization & inventory every month, you're better off buying vicodin online than trying to procure narcs from a hospital.
I work retail, and our regional loss prevention person says that there is some diversion that goes on. They caught a tech awhile back who was lifting one bottle a day by putting the whole bottle inside her fast food drink cup and then taking the drink cup out of the pharmacy.kkelloww said:
I don't honestly know how much of a problem it is, but (like in the hospital setting) there are inventory controls that would eventually create some suspicion if there was diversion in any sort of quantity going on.
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One store I know of had a B-tech who was practically raping the C-II cabinet for several months with no one noticing. Apparently one of the other staff members turned her in after the girl threatened to accuse her of being the one stealing. There may very well have been multiple hands in the candy jar. It was a case of ridiculous mismanagement and irresponsible staff pharmacists who didn't bother to balalnce the book or didn't care about following up on discrepancies.
One local independent pharmacist was letting patients write C-II scripts in the back room - practicing until their forgery was good enough. He got busted and spent a couple of years in prison. He signed the store over to his son when **** went down, then got his license back by having his son sponsor him upon release.
One girl at my store was taking alot of tramadol via legitimate prescription. She got fired for stealing something from the main store floor. A month later, I noticed that our tramadol counts were off by a few hundred tablets. It's not a controlled drug in this state, but some people sure seek like it is. It probably went her way. But, she's gone, so there isn't much to be done about it but write it off.
Last week a part time pharmacist I know who is pretty new to retail filled a forgery which looked fine on the face. The red flags were up, though. The "patient" was paying cash and was filling for an enormous dose which should have only gone to someone with established narcotic tolerance while making conversation about mot having used narcotics before- except for a couple of Vicodin which hurt his stomach and T3s which didn't work. Sometimes even a meaning pharmacist can get duped. Experience means a bundle, I guess.
It happens enough to notice, but it isn't commonplace.
One local independent pharmacist was letting patients write C-II scripts in the back room - practicing until their forgery was good enough. He got busted and spent a couple of years in prison. He signed the store over to his son when **** went down, then got his license back by having his son sponsor him upon release.
One girl at my store was taking alot of tramadol via legitimate prescription. She got fired for stealing something from the main store floor. A month later, I noticed that our tramadol counts were off by a few hundred tablets. It's not a controlled drug in this state, but some people sure seek like it is. It probably went her way. But, she's gone, so there isn't much to be done about it but write it off.
Last week a part time pharmacist I know who is pretty new to retail filled a forgery which looked fine on the face. The red flags were up, though. The "patient" was paying cash and was filling for an enormous dose which should have only gone to someone with established narcotic tolerance while making conversation about mot having used narcotics before- except for a couple of Vicodin which hurt his stomach and T3s which didn't work. Sometimes even a meaning pharmacist can get duped. Experience means a bundle, I guess.
It happens enough to notice, but it isn't commonplace.
No direct experience except for that which is reported by our state board in their mailings to pharmacists.
I know its an issue.....but a hard one to get a firm handle on because there are places providers can report themselves which does not get reported to the board. So...the only actual numbers come from those who are caught - not all the ones who choose to seek treatment before getting caught.
I can honestly say I've only worked with one impaired person that I was aware of & that was a technician who was an alcoholic. If others were impaired, I had no knowledge of it.
I know its an issue.....but a hard one to get a firm handle on because there are places providers can report themselves which does not get reported to the board. So...the only actual numbers come from those who are caught - not all the ones who choose to seek treatment before getting caught.
I can honestly say I've only worked with one impaired person that I was aware of & that was a technician who was an alcoholic. If others were impaired, I had no knowledge of it.
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kkelloww said:
My best friends dad in highschool was a pharmacist who abused prescription drugs. My mom was close friends with his dad and she told me recently that he was eventually lost his license and could no longer work as a pharmacist. He eventually overdosed on painkillers and anti-depressents and died at the age of 49. Really sad story because I grew up going to church with their family and all.
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I'm currently the narcotic tech at a medium sized hospital where I've worked for 3 years. We've never had a problem with diversion amongst the pharmacy staff, where everyone is allowed to sign out all narcotics; we're really lucky. I've seen about 4 instances where nurses were stealing narcotics out of Acudose but those nurses never stay too long in one place. We use paper log books, not electronic signatures, which are a bit antiquated and make auditing a pain the in a$$.
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rxlynn said:
My district loss prevention guy tells us the exact same story! I've also heard of techs throwing away unempty bottles away and then getting the bottles when they take the trash out. A pharmacist in my area was also fired for writing his own prescriptions. Not pill diversion, but we had a tech that stole a customer's credit card after he left it at the store (in the drive thru another reason drive thrus are stupid) and charged $400 worth of groceries before she was caught. Cops actually went to the store to arrest her.
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