Ex-pharmacist in Spain charged for falsifying hundreds of prescriptions
Ex-pharmacist from Ulldemolins is charged with falsifying hundreds of prescriptions
According to the investigation of the public prosecutor the pharmacist would have falsified 200 medicine prescriptions. The ex-pharmacist is now facing a punishment of two years and nine months of imprisonment for being responsible for a continuous series of falsification of official documents. The ex-pharmacist´s aim for the falsification of the documents was to increase the amount invoiced to the Catalan Health Service.
The procedures supposedly followed by the pharmacist were two: one of them was to change the name of the medicine that was recorded on the prescription to the name of another more expensive medicine. In other cases he would record the dispensation of two packs of medicines, although he only gave one.
In both cases, the patients did not notice anything because they gave the prescription to the pharmacist and the pharmacist would dispense the medicine to them as recorded on the prescription. After that, when he had to invoice the medicines to CatSalut, he erased the name of the medicine that was recorded on the prescription and replaced it by the name of another much more expensive medicine. In order to finish the falsification he cut out the bar-code coupons of the more expensive medicines and attached them to the prescriptions before invoicing.
The professionals of the Division of Healthcare Evaluation and Inspection conducted two inspection visits to the pharmacy. However after the second visit, the pharmacist sold the establishment. During the inspection, packs including medicines without bar-code coupons were found on the shelves. The ex-pharmacist had attached them to the falsified prescriptions.
In the provisional document of conclusions, the public prosecutor states that if the ex-pharmacist would have falsified a total of 152 of prescriptions made by a doctor of the municipality, with the replacing of medicines by other more expensive, the ex-pharmacist could have obtained a profit of € 7.498.98. Additionally, the document also reveals that the ex-pharmacist would have gotten an estimated amount of € 728.54 from CatSalut, by giving the patient only one pack but record the dispensation of two packs of medicines.
Full article in Spanish: http://www.elpunt.cat/noticia/article/24-puntdivers/4-divers/356613-acusen-lexfarmaceutic-dulldemolins-de-falsificar-centenars-de-receptes.html
