There was a time when liability—criminal or civil—for drug abuse or forged prescriptions usually lay only with the abuser or the forger and those who actively helped them. Those days are long gone.
First, we had PDMPs (prescription drug monitoring programs) up and running in 49 states, in effect making physicians responsible for knowing the drug profiles and histories of their chronic-pain patients. Next, we had a 2015 ruling by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals allowing patients to sue prescribers and pharmacies for the consequences of their drug abuse, even though they admitted being addicted before seeing the doctors and lying to them about their injuries and symptoms. Later that year, when employees stole narcotics from the Massachusetts General Hospital supply room, the hospital had to pay the federal government $2.3M for letting it happen.
Now, as of June 30, CVS Pharmacy has agreed to pay $3.5M to settle claims that dozens of its New Hampshire and Massachusetts stores filled over 500 forged opioid prescriptions from 2011 to 2014. According to BNA Health Care Daily Report, one forger signed a dentist’s name on 56 of 59 oxycodone prescriptions that he filled at five CVS stores—even though CVS had banned him from its stores in 2011. Another forger reportedly filled over 200 forged hydrocodone and methadone prescriptions.
CVS also entered into a three-year compliance agreement with the DEA, calling for internal programs to enhance its safeguards against diversion of controlled substances.
So the trend continues at both state and federal levels: more and more, authorities are holding prescribers, hospitals, and pharmacies responsible for taking steps to prevent the abuse of narcotics. It’s not enough for them to refrain from wrongdoing. They have to take reasonable steps to prevent their patients and customers from wrongdoing.
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