Internal Pharmacy Thefts - How Prevalent?

Something got me wondering, how big of a problem are thefts by pharmacy employees of various narcotics and other "high value" meds? Speaking mostly within the US, but anywhere is fine. For the prices that these medications go for, its almost like handling gold so the temptation has got to be there for the pharmacy employees. Also, when these thefts happen, do they largely go unreported? I figure between the price value of certain pills plus the fact that many of them are addicting its gotta be somewhat common?

I figure there are two main ways for an employee to steal: they outright just snag some pills here and there from the dispensers. Although since many are now Schedule II, esp the newly scheduled norco, this may be difficult as I assume that these meds are locked away and only accessible by very few employees - maybe even just the pharmacist. The other way whcih would beat audits, would be to steal from the customers' bottles and hope they don't notice. Does this happen often?

I once had a situation that got me thinking. Basically a script was severly underfilled, I called them out on it, they actually acknowledged it almost immediately and corrected the problem. It was strange, like they knew they shorted me right away b/c they didn't argue about it, as soon as I walked in, someone behind said "Oh sorry, we accidentally didn't give you the full amount, here ya go." And I had actually left the pharmacy and didn't notice until I was driving away, so I was shocked that they acknowledged it since they could have accused me of trying to get extras.


Comments


[4 Points] Pizzdog:

I doubt it happens often at pharmacies, the real thieves are nurses. A lot of nurses are addicts and replace your dilaudid or morphine with a pill that looks a lot like it (placebo) and just pocket yours. They often don't have any fail safe to protect the patient against this.


[3 Points] ndw10325:

I had a similar problem, I knew they had made a mistake because it was written for 180 pills but I got 150(which was what I was getting the month before) and called them, they triple count S2 meds(so 3 people count them, and at each stage they take a picture, a lot of folks don't know that). The photos showed there were only 150 and I got the rest the next day no problem, it's a great pharmacy really, I knew they wouldn't accuse me of theft or anything although I was nervous calling about it.


[3 Points] None:

I don't know about in the US but in the UK, controlled drugs are behind a couple of different locks with as many key holders so more than one person would have to be complicit in it. They also have to be signed out by two people and the person dispensing them has to have them checked by another employee against the prescription before they're given to the patient. I'm sure it happens though because I don't doubt for a minute that the laws/procedures surrounding dispensing controlled drugs are always followed.

Stealing from the drugs cabinet in a hospital is theoretically easier. While the several different key holders and two signatures still applies to controlled drugs, only one nurse/doctor needs to administer the meds so they could easily pocket it especially with a patient who is confused or unconscious so wouldn't know if they'd had it or not. Diamorphine is the only exception in that two people need to be present during the administering so they'd both have to be complicit.

In my experience, people are far more likely just to get their doctor or nurse practitioner friends to write a script for them. I'm a nurse and an addict who works on A+E and thus has access to a huge amount of opiods and benzos and I've never been tempted to steal. Besides how completely immoral it is to not give a patient the analgesia they need because I'm keeping it myself, it's really not worth the risk.


[1 Points] Sparkler11:

http://www.midlandcrimestoppers.com/custom.aspx?p=3

I read this story the other day and the number of pills taken and it happening twice made me think it was an inside job. Most places have these pills in some sort of robot that's locked down. I had a friend who worked in a pharmacy a long time ago that would see and remember a person that had a refill of a med they wanted. The. After a while would fill it and have a friend come pick it up for them. They never got caught doing it as far as I know. I also knew someone who was shorted pills like the other poster who called and the same thing happened: they acted like they were aware ahead of time. Where I am from, about 8 years ago, a pharmacy got closed down because the pharmacist was lying for a long time somehow on his counts of drugs and he owned the pharmacy. There is all kinds of crazy stuff that goes on in those places.


[1 Points] 666fun:

I have a couple of friends that were in this line Of work, albeit must different times and in different states

friend 1, we'll call him "John" was an actual pharmacist. He would often say that that line of work is not w good one to be in for people with certain "predispositions". Like, drugs everywhere. Morphine. Dilaudid. Dexedrine. Xanax. THe list goes on and one, and they're all basically accessible to any one whose job puts them behind the pharmacies counter.

So basically anyone that wanted, could easily put their hands in the cookie jar and extract, err... A lot of drugs. But they do that knowing that they will be caught one day.

This is from years ago so procedurew may have changed and if thry have, then those changes have only been implemented to make the life of a less than honesty employee harder not easier.

Back then, at the end of each day, one of the techs would conduct an inventory of all of the controlled substances on hand. The next morning a different employee would do the exact same inventory. Makes it pretty easy to notice if someone is trying to to pad the count sheets.

Maybe they're colluding with one another to cover their thefts? Periodically, the pharmacist would do his own inventory, based on what was ordered and what was dispensed based on the actual prescriptions they had filled. His final numbers are compared to the techs counts, abc then he counts the physical inventor himself.

One day I was waiting for a different friend to get off work 6 o'clock rolls around and all the general staff leave. 630, and not a single pharmacy employee hss left. This is all before cell phones were common, mind you, so im just stuck sitting in my car and waiting. They didn't emerge until just before 8pm.

Why?

When my friend did her pill count sheet she was off by ONE 5 mg Percocet and had it been misappropriated, that was basically her job (she was still in the 90 day early hire period)

The boss had said that everyone could go and they'd resume the search in the morning, but fearing that someone from the morning shift would find it and keep it for themselves, she insisted in staying til was found. And it was found. That one Percocet had fallen from her table and rolled under the refisferator.

So that's how employees are kept in line, but whose watching the pharmacist? The DEA, who knows how much of what was ordered and who can review all the scripts the pharmacy has on file, will come down like a ton of bricks on a pharmacist whose sloppy with their controlled substances

So, no. Drugs embezzled from pharmacies will never make up much of the market. The professional lifespan of a pharmacy employee attempting to pull something off like that isn't going to be very long and when they get caught, they're lookimg at dismissal as their best hope because felony charges are another option. And forget about returning to that line of work, in the short term at least. Absent a bit of time and a documented stay in treatment, your job prospects in the Industty are basically shot to hell


[1 Points] bitcoinfashion:

Gotmilk is the best example of a diverted pharmacy