Healthcare Compliance Perspective:
Skilled nursing facilities and long-term care pharmacies must audit the appropriate disposal of unused medications. Compliance Officers must audit the effectiveness of these audits.
To settle federal claims for the illegal recycling of unused medications from a nursing home, a pharmacy chain will pay nearly $2.7 million. Federal prosecutors also claim that the chain “overcharged insurance programs for diabetic test strips.”
The pharmacy chain runs several retail pharmacies, a mail-order prescription service and makes deliveries to numerous nursing homes and agencies across western Pennsylvania.
The pharmacy scheme involved two employees who picked up unused prescription drugs from nursing homes. These unused prescriptions had been prescribed for deceased residents who no longer needed the medications. Instead of destroying the medications, as is legally required, the picked-up drugs would be taken back to the pharmacy and be recycled to fill other prescriptions. This meant that older, unused drugs were intermixed and relabeled with newer drugs-a violation of federal law.
The two former employees charged in the scheme each face up to five years in prison. One of the two pled guilty to conspiracy and will be sentenced in October. The other was just recently charged.
No patients were harmed in the scheme.
