ADA - RX Fraud
Carla
5 Posts
We have an employee who received a prescription from her physician. The original RX was for Qty #60. The RX read Qty #160 when taken into the pharmacy to be filled. The pharmacy called the clinic where the RX was issued and explained they think this RX was "doctored". After investigating a copy of the original prescription, and talking to the doctor that wrote the prescription, it was determined that the Qty was changed. Now here is our issue. We are a medical clinic, do we terminate the employee who changed the RX, or are we obligated to talk with her to see if she has a drug problem and deal with it that way! any advise would help. If you know where this issue would be in the federal guidelines, that would help also.
Comments
What was the Rx that was written? You might not want to post it on this forum, but I'd like to know if the script was for Oxycontin or Advil/Tylenol; class II narcotics, etc?????? Once this was known, I'd proceed with questioning the employee to get their side------people sometimes have creative justifications for fraud! This may clearly be fraud, but until you've determined all the facts, I'd be reluctant to discharge based on emotion. As far as where this issue is within federal guidelines, I'll bet it's against the law......:) While discharge would be my preference (vs. rehab) for this type of infraction, you'll have to do what makes sense for you. I look at this similarly to an employee theft and we don't pursue counselling/rehab for this type of violation either. We de-employ the person. Good luck with your fact finding mission.
When I called her and told her she was terminated, she tried to blame it on everyone but herself. She said someone else wrote the prescription in (it was her handwriting) and then she said it was her sister in the pharmacy trying to get it filled I advised her regardless of who was trying to get it filled, it was a prescription for her and it was forged in her handwriting.
After her termination, she got her sister to call in the next day and said that she committed suicide. Then, she (the employee) called a few days later and wanted to know where her last paycheck was. I told her I was advised that she was deceased and the paycheck would have to go to the estate. (This realy got comical after a while). This was one of my weirder cases!
You can see why we would rather not have someone of this calibre in our employ taking care of patients!
James Sokolowski
Senior Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers