• 07
  • February
    2012

The potential for nursing home abuse or neglect in North Carolina and elsewhere is always present and entertains many possibilities, from acts of staff negligence to outright misconduct that yields harsh and sometimes tragic results.

A precautionary tale now emerging from the state of Washington points to a practice that immediately puts patients at risk and yet is far off a "typical high scrutiny" list for regulators and criminal investigators.

Namely, that is prescription fraud, but not in a manner that most people would ever even think of. The criminal investigations division of the FDA is currently conducting an investigation into select pharmacies in and around Seattle that investigators say have been involved in a disingenuous practice that puts patients in harm's way and money in the pockets of the business owners.

That practice involves picking up unused prescriptions from various nursing homes, repackaging them back at the pharmacies, and then reselling them as new to patients at the same and other homes.

Investigators point to both the clear illegality of that and the extreme harm posed by it. They note that such drugs might have already expired. Moreover, they could have been tampered with, stored improperly or repacked with mislabeled ingredients and in the wrong doses.

Regulators conducted raids on several pharmacies last month, and the investigation is presently ongoing. No charges have yet been filed, but, among other things, authorities might be looking for collusive activity between the pharmacies and certain nursing homes.

Source: Seattle Post Intelligencer, "Feds: Pharmacies gave 'used' drugs to W. Washington nursing homes" Levi Pulkkinen, Jan. 25, 2012