State Wasted $13 Million on Prison Drug
Program, Auditor Says. A report from the inspector general
for the state prison system says California wasted at least $13 million last
year through inefficiencies in the way it delivers prescription drugs to
prisoners.
The audit was
initiated based on pharmacy staff who approached
inspectors from the Office of the Inspector General during a regular review of
prison facilities. The staff was "concerned about the sheer amount of
wasted medication in prison pharmacies," the report said.
The report
continued: "This report highlights the results of our review and focuses
on waste in prison pharmacy operations in four areas: the failure to restock
millions of dollars in unused medications each year; the lack of adherence to
the formulary, which is an approved list of medications, resulting in millions
of dollars overspent on medications each year; the functionally unreliable
computerized pharmacy inventory system that bears no relation to the actual
stock of medications at any prison pharmacy; and the inconsistent practices
among prisons when transferring inmates with medications, resulting in excess
medications that are most often destroyed. Contrary to expectation, there are
almost no procedures for identifying and restocking medications. This
managerial void costs taxpayers at least $7.7 million, and very likely close to
$20 million, every year. In addition, due to the absence of oversight, CDCR
clinicians routinely prescribe non-formulary medications, costing taxpayers at
least another $5.5 million in 2009 alone."
Additional costs
were incurred for staff time "as pharmacists find ways around the
state-wide computerized inventory system, a system so unreliable that
pharmacists prefer to rely on handwritten tallies," the report said. And
in the absence of consistent medication transfer procedures when inmates are
transferred among prisons, prison pharmacies routinely generate unnecessary
prescription refills, which are often destroyed. Since more than 100,000
inmates on medications are transferred among California's state prisons each
year, with each of those inmates receiving an average of 5.5 prescription
medications, the report said "the costs of filling and destroying
unnecessary and unused prescriptions are tremendous."
The federal receiver
who oversees prison medical care said he is making many of the changes
recommended in the report, including using more generic drugs and improving
tracking of prescriptions. (Sources: The
Sacramento Bee, April 14; report from Office of the Inspector General,
April 15.)
Cal-Tax
recommendation: The inspector general should review the situation later this
year to ensure that the problem areas are being addressed, and state officials
should review any other program that purchases and distributes prescription
drugs to ensure that similar waste in not occurring there, as well.
Cal-TaxReports, April 19, 2010
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