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Does anyone know how the audit trail in a grocery store pharmacy works?
I'm trying to decide if I have something to be concerned about or not. I was recently prescribed (for my dog) a controlled drug.
When I got the prescription, the number of pills in the bottle, was not the same as the number of pills that was prescribed (I was prescribed 240 pills, I got 200 pills).
What concerns me, is that the pharmacy now has a piece of paper that says x pills were prescribed to me, and x isn't the number of pills I got.
In my mind, it would be possible for someone to create a second label, and dispense the remaining number of pills to themselves (they could even pay for them). In that case, everything would line up. The number of pills prescribed = the number of pills dispensed, but isn't the same as the number of pills I actually got.
I'm relatively certain that there isn't anything nefarious going on here, but it does make me wonder --- would my imaginary scheme work in practice? How does the audit trail work in the pharmacy?
For those who might be worried that I'm planning on stealing some controlled drugs, I'll tell you, in a little more than two years I'll have a DVM after my name, and the power to prescribe things myself...at which point there would be far easier ways to abuse the system than this!
@Tony,
Yes, it was phenobarb. I actually didn't count them, the bottle was labeled at 200 pills, but the prescription was for 240. My thought was, it would be easy for some one to 'explain away' why the prescription was split in to two for some reason, and the whole audit trail would still match up. (prescribed and dispensed 240 pills).
I phoned the pharmacy, and spoke to someone (don't know if it was the pharmacist or not), and they told me that they didn't have enough pills to fill it, which struck me as odd, as they checked in their computer before dispensing the stock that they had on hand, and didn't say anything. Then, when they tried to sell the pills, the computer wouldn't ring them through (I saw them try), so they took my cash, and gave me change, but it didn't actually go through on the computer.
1 Answer
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
Yes, I know exactly how the audit trail in a pharmacy works.
Was it phenobarbital? I guess that, because that is the only controlled substance that I see used for animals 99% of the time.
My first question would be, why did you pour out all of the pills to count them? Was the bottle filled to a lower mark than it usually is?
You should bring the bottle of pills to the pharmacy manager and bring the discrepancy to his/her attention. The Pharmacist In Charge is obligated to do a complete controlled substance inventory at least once every 2 years, and frequently they are required to inventory more often than that.
If you bring the discrepancy to the attention of the pharmacy manager (who is usually the pharmacist in charge) he/she will likely audit the number of pills on hand vs. how many his/her records indicate that there should be on hand. If your count is right, he/she will likely apologize and give you the 40 that you are missing.
Good luck. By the way, congratulations on going choosing veterinarian medicine as a profession. That's a great field.
