When speaking to the police, physicians should be careful not to identify any individual patient, while providing the necessary details about the incident. Physicians may consider notifying the police of the loss.
When theft of prescription pads is suspected, physicians should contact the CMPA and consult any guidance or policies from their College. When speaking to OCS and the police, physicians should be careful not to identify any individual patient, while providing the necessary details about the incident. Physicians may also consider notifying police of the loss or theft. If drugs are lost or stolen, this must be reported to Health Canada’s Office of Controlled Substances (OCS) within 10 days of the discovery. Loss or theft of drugsĬontrolled drugs must be stored securely to mitigate the possibility of theft. Possession of these substances is legal only with a prescription or other lawful authorization. In general, these are drugs that can have a detrimental effect on a person’s health and well-being, as well as substances that are prescribed by licensed medical practitioners and sold through pharmacies and dispensaries for legitimate medical treatment. The federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act 1 lists the items that are defined as controlled drugs and substances in Canada. Diversion of prescription medication can occur in many ways such as drug theft, prescription forgery, or a patient obtaining multiple prescriptions from various doctors (i.e. The fact that obtaining controlled drugs is lawful only with a physician’s prescription sometimes places physicians at the intersection of medicine and the law. Improper disclosure to the police of information about a patient may expose a physician to a complaint to a regulatory authority (College) or privacy commissioner.
#I stop pmp professional#
When deciding what steps to take, physicians need to consider their professional obligation to protect the confidentiality of patient health information. For this reason, physicians should know their obligations, which include taking reasonable steps to help prevent drug diversion-the transfer of controlled substances from lawful sources to the illicit marketplace-and related fraudulent activity. Physicians who know what to do when they become aware of potential illegal activity concerning medications they prescribe, or that are otherwise under their control, are better prepared to resolve the matter effectively-and more likely to avoid possible medico-legal difficulties. You ask him to reconcile the month’s prescriptions with the actual inventory, and his findings show that the vials are indeed missing.
Distressed, he brings this news to you (his manager and clinic partner) at the end of a busy day. During a routine inventory of a clinic’s medication storage, the medical assistant notes that nearly all of the supply of oxycodone is not to be found.
0 kommentar(er)
