SACRAMENTO-
Investigators looking into 37,000 missing prescription pain pills at Sacramento area CVS stores say it was numerous “report of theft” forms that got their attention.
According to search warrants obtained by FOX40, in October 2012, the Sacramento office of the Drug Enforcement Administration noticed numerous CVS stores in the area submitted a “report of theft or loss of controlled substances” form. They were reporting the loss of hydrocodone tablets, and said the reason for the loss was “unknown”.
Later that month, the DEA and California Board of Pharmacy Inspector looked into reports from a CVS in Rocklin. This particular pharmacy reported a loss of 20,455 tablets. The investigation revealed more than 580 record keeping violations, according to the DEA’s warrant, and other “missing” prescriptions.
In December 2012, a CVS employee witnessed a pharmacy technician attempt to steal a bottle of hydrocodone. This pharmacy technician admitted to the DEA she stole about 20,000 pills, and was charged.
Based on this incident, the DEA in 2013 started looking more into other stores with high “report of theft” forms. The agency cites the 2012 incident, and the individual store’s “report of theft” pill amount, for reasons to search the store’s records.
The Fairfield store had reports of more than 11,000 pills being missing, the Turlock CVS submitted “report of theft” forms for more than 16,000 pills, the Dixon and Modesto stores each submitted forms for about 4,700 missing pills.
There have been no accompanying arrests of any former or current CVS employees announced in connection with this investigation at this time.
In response to the DEA’s investigation, CVS Pharmacy has released the following statement:
“We are committed to working with the DEA, other regulatory and enforcement agencies, as well as key stakeholders in the medical community, to combat prescription drug abuse and diversion. We are cooperating with the DEA in their review of pharmacy records at a few of our pharmacies in California to determine the reasons for the discrepancies in our record keeping and to correct them. As health care providers, our pharmacists and technicians remain focused on ensuring prescription drugs are only delivered to the patients who need them.
CVS Caremark takes very seriously the challenge of combating prescription drug abuse and diversion, and we recognize the important role our pharmacists and technicians play on the front lines of solving this problem. As a company, we are investing significantly in internal controls and processes aimed at preventing prescription drug diversion from our pharmacies. For example, we are enhancing internal audit procedures to detect diversion, developing electronic controlled substance ordering and receiving systems, and implementing new storage and control measures for hydrocodone products beyond regulatory requirements across all of our 7,600 stores. “
