A Cedar Rapids nurse who diverted narcotics to her own use at four major Eastern Iowa healthcare providers, including three hospitals and a home healthcare company, was sentenced to five years in federal prison. The nurse, age 43, received the prison term after pleading guilty in 2021 and 2022 in three separate federal criminal cases to five felonies, namely, one count of tampering with a consumer product; one count of false statements relating to healthcare matters; one count of violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA); one count of obtaining a controlled substance by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception, or subterfuge; and one count of theft of government funds.
Between 2017 and 2019, the nurse acquired various controlled substances from her employers, including opioids such as hydromorphone (also known by the trade name “Dilaudid”), morphine, and oxycodone. To do so, the nurse secretly tampered with the vials of the controlled substances, replacing the pain medication with saline and restocking the tampered-with vials into a secure drug dispensing machine that the hospital’s doctors and nurses used. To find out which of her employers’ patients were supposed to receive the pain medication, she engaged in an illegal practice known as “patient combing,” in which she used her access to her employers’ computers to examine private patient records. She also made false and fictitious statements to her employers and in patient records to cover up her scheme.
The nurse was sentenced to 60 months’ imprisonment and ordered to make over $6,000 in restitution to the State of Iowa. She must also serve a three-year term of supervised release after the prison term. There is no parole in the federal system. At the sentencing hearing, the judge observed that this was one of the worst cases of narcotics theft by a healthcare professional he had seen.
United States Attorney Timothy T. Duax stated, “[The nurse’s] conduct was egregious. She placed the patients of three of Eastern Iowa’s major hospitals and a home healthcare provider at serious risk of harm when she replaced needed pain medications with saline. Her sentence is well-deserved and hopefully will deter others who would be tempted to steal narcotics from their employers and patients.”
Compliance Perspective
Issue
Failure to prevent diversion of residents’ prescribed controlled medications by staff who sell or take the drugs for their personal use may be considered abuse, neglect, misappropriation, and fraud, in violation of state and federal regulations. Staff who divert medications have developed a number of ways to conceal diversion. Facilities should implement a proactive diversion-prevention program which identifies the types of medications most likely to be taken, signs that diversion has taken place, and signs of impairment.
Discussion Points
- Review your policies and procedures on preventing, identifying, and responding to drug diversion. Update as needed.
- Train appropriate staff on actions that can be taken to prevent, identify, and respond to any suspicion of drug diversion. Provide education on the impact of drug diversion on residents as a form of abuse and neglect, staff responsibility to report concerns immediately, and the consequences of theft of controlled substances. Document that the trainings occurred, and place the signed document in each employee’s education file.
- Periodically audit to ensure that all controlled substances are accounted for each shift, and that proper documentation of controlled substances has occurred. Include your consultant pharmacist in this effort.
*This news alert has been prepared by Med-Net Concepts, LLC for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal advice.*
