I have written about this case before.
This is a case where two central Florida CVS pharmacies were filling highly suspect prescriptions for powerful pain medications for patients, including for non- Florida residents. The facts of this case were egregious and no serious effort to stop financially lucrative and improper filling of fraudulent prescriptions ever occurred until after the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) conducted its investigation.
CVS has maintained they were a “busy” pharmacy. I find the comments to this article as interesting as the article itself. Many in the pharmacy industry want to blame the doctors and evade any professional responsibility in the pill mill epidemic sweeping our country. Allowing that to happen is a prescription for nothing corrected.
CVS now has “enhanced” its guidelines and submitted a new plan to the DEA. “Enhanced” is code for ok we will really plan to do something now. Rightfully, the DEA has said CVS has done too little, too late. The truth is the DEA hit them where it hurts, at the bottom line. Sadly that is often what it takes.
What if…now I’m just “spit-balling”, but what if we actually had government oversight in certain industries? What if real policing of these companies occurred and real penalties could always be handed down in exchange for bad conduct?
Yes, monitoring the disbursement of powerful pin pills might even mean a little extra work, but it is needed and it is necessary. We all need to do our part; the public, the doctors, the pharmacies and the government. However, the last real and professional gatekeeper is the pharmacy and its time they step up and look at the dispensing of dangerous medications as something other than just another way to generate an enhanced bottom line.
Kudos to the DEA. These actions will lead to future arrests to slow or stop the problem, but more importantly, future lives saved.
