What Happened

Denise Richardson, a pharmacy technician with roughly 18 years of experience at the Roseburg VA Medical Center in Oregon, manipulated the pharmacy's narcotics tracking and dispensing system to steal thousands of pills.

From January 2010 to June 2011, Richardson stole more than 6,000 pills of oxycodone, clonazepam, zolpidem, and OxyContin from the VA pharmacy for her own use and to give to friends and family. A review of pharmacy records during a VA Office of Inspector General and DEA investigation determined the drugs cost the VA $23,475.23, though their street value was estimated at roughly $250,000; investigators found no evidence she sold them.

On January 31, 2013, she was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution equal to the VA's purchase cost of the stolen drugs.

What Went Wrong

An experienced pharmacy technician was able to manipulate the facility's own narcotics tracking system for a year and a half before detection. Key failures included:

  • The narcotics tracking and dispensing system had a manipulable gap that allowed a long-tenured technician to obscure the true quantity of pills removed.
  • Reconciliation of pharmacy records against actual on-hand inventory did not occur frequently enough to catch a scheme sustained over roughly 18 months.
  • Long tenure and trusted status were not offset by independent, periodic verification of this employee's transactions.

How It Could Have Been Prevented

  • Require dual verification or system controls that prevent a single technician from being able to both record and adjust narcotics tracking entries.
  • Conduct physical inventory counts frequently enough to catch a sustained diversion scheme well before it reaches thousands of dosage units.
  • Apply the same periodic, independent transaction audits to long-tenured and trusted staff as to newer employees.
  • Route pharmacy narcotics-system anomalies to a compliance function independent of pharmacy operations for review.

Related Guidance

Sources