An eastern Kentucky hospital has been fined over $4 million for violating federal recordkeeping laws which allowed approximately 60,000 pills, including hydrocodone and oxycodone, to be stolen from the hospital and distributed in Pike and surrounding counties.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky announced that Pikeville Medical Center (PMC) has agreed to pay $4,394,600 in civil penalties to resolve allegations that its violations of the Controlled Substances Act’s (CSA) recordkeeping provisions resulted in significant diversion of dangerous opioids from its pharmacy, prosecutors said.
The settlement is the third largest civil penalty relating to CSA recordkeeping violations involving allegations of drug diversion at a hospital.
In settlement documents, the government contends that over a two-year period, PMC violated multiple provisions of the CSA relating to recordkeeping, including failing to maintain complete and accurate inventories and dispensing records for Schedule II controlled substances.
The government alleges that as a result of these failures, a PMC pharmacy technician, Kayla Nichole White Perry, was able to divert more than 60,000 dosage units of oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone from PMC’s narcotics vault and Pyxis MedStations between January 1, 2016 and September 7, 2018.
The controlled substances diverted from PMC ultimately were trafficked by Perry’s husband, William Chad Perry.
Kayla Perry was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison while her husband was sentenced to 38 months after couple pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute Schedule II controlled substances.
PMC, as part of the settlement, has entered into a three-year Memorandum of Agreement with the DEA, which prescribes the hospital’s drug-handling responsibilities going forward. These steps include:
- Permitting DEA personnel to enter its registered location at any time during regular business hours without an administrative inspection warrant, and without prior notification to PMC, to verify compliance with the Memorandum of Agreement
- Conducting an inventory of select controlled substances every six months and providing the results to DEA
- Investigating and documenting any concerns about diversion, employee theft, or significant loss of controlled substances
- Reporting suspicious controlled substance incidents to DEA on a quarterly basis
- Providing mandatory training on federal laws and regulations pertaining to controlled substances for all employees and contract personnel who have access to controlled substances.
(Photo: Pikeville Medical Center, courtesy of topplemag.com)
By Ken Howlett, News Director
Contact Ken at ken@k105.com
