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http://triblive.com/news/adminpage/6482670-74/lawsuit-says-pharmacies#axzz38BoSvSti
From the article:
CVS and Giant Eagle pharmacies allowed other people to fill oxycodone prescriptions made out in his name and, in Giant Eagle’s case, then charged his health insurance, a local attorney says in a proposed class-action lawsuit moved to federal court on Monday.
Andrew Gabriel, whose office is in Sewickley, is suing the pharmacies for negligently handling the security of personal information, identity theft, invasion of privacy and other claims. He’s suing on behalf of a national class that numbers in the “hundreds of thousands,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit says Gabriel learned that the pharmacies had allowed other people to obtain oxycodone and other controlled substances in his name on May 14, 2012, when a Pittsburgh police detective called to tell him he was the victim of identity theft.
The person presenting the prescription also showed prescriptions in several other names, the lawsuit says. Because the prescriptions were for frequently abused drugs, the pharmacies should have taken extra care in filling them, according to the lawsuit.
“Defendants repeatedly failed to conduct themselves as trusted professionals in favor of profit-seeking behavior by consciously ignoring or being indifferent to these well-known medical identity theft risks,” the lawsuit says.
Another example of how if Pharmacists had the ability to cross reference the driver’s license presented against the state’s BMV on-line database to validate if the license presented is valid… these controlled meds would probably not have been dispensed. BUT… fewer drugs on the street.. means less work for the DEA and/or they would have to go after the really “bad guys”… you know the ones that are ARMED and SHOOT BACK ! When it comes to business related issues it is wiser to talk to a legal expert like the lawyers for businesses cases to deal with such situations in a better manner.
Filed under: General Problems
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im sorry but they should be trying to catch criminals who are defrauding the system to obtain fake rxs and fill narcotics illegally. The only way cvs should be held liable is if th person stealing the identity obtained the information from cvs due to lack of security for pt hippa info
With Oxy 30 going for up to $1/mg, these folks can be quite enterprising. The may have several different drivers’ licenses in different names. So even using the state PDMP does not show a pattern. Calling the md does not help because there may be someone in the office who is “in on it”. Or the call are forwarded to a burner cell phone. The fun never ends with these people.
Don’t know how CVS or Eagle does it, but at Wal-Mart, the person picking up the medication must present a drivers license and know the birthday of the patient. I can see where a problem could arise if the person picking up the medication has a fake ID. Even having a cross reference to the states drivers license database might not be enough. Suppose they have someones actual drivers license number on the fake ID? If the crooks are sophisticated enough, then there may be no ‘feasible’ way to catch this. Since the guy in this case is a lawyer, naturally he will sue. Isn’t that what lawyers do? In my opinion, this case should be tossed out. There are limits to just how much a pharmacist should know. We cannot know everything about everyone and we should not be responsible if someone steals someone else’s identity.