Copyright 2000 The San Diego Union-Tribune
The San
Diego Union-Tribune
February 12, 2000, Saturday
SECTION: LOCAL;Pg. B-1
LENGTH: 886 words
HEADLINE:
Prescription slips found outside drugstore; Company denies fault, says proper
precautions were taken
BYLINE: Dwight Daniels; STAFF
WRITER
BODY:
CARLSBAD -- More than 9,500
prescription slips were discovered in a cardboard box in a drugstore parking lot
here this week. The slips contain patients' names, addresses, phone numbers and
the medicines they were prescribed.
Some of the prescriptions, which
ranged from psychiatrists' orders for antidepressants to physicians'
prescriptions for antibiotics, narcotics and balms, include information such as
the Social Security numbers, dates of birth and medical-record numbers of
patients.
The slips were found in an unsealed 12-inch-by-12-inch box
placed next to a transformer in the parking lot of a shopping center that houses
a Sav-on drugstore and a number of other tenants. The box was found
approximately 100 feet from the drugstore, which is on El Camino Real near state
Route 78. Some of the slips include the pharmacy's name and address. Most of the
prescriptions appear to have been written in the late 1980s. They were found in
bundles of 100, each wrapped with paper and a rubber band.
Pharmacy and
store managers declined to be interviewed, but a spokeswoman for Albertson's
Inc. in San Leandro faxed a statement to The San Diego Union-Tribune. Sav-on is
a unit of Albertson's. The statement said the company "treats the
confidentiality of patient information with the utmost seriousness, and we make
every effort to dispose of outdated information in a secure fashion."
"Though it would defeat those very measures to reveal our precise
procedures, you should know that the records in question were placed in a locked
disposal area before their unauthorized removal."
The spokeswoman,
Judith A. Decker, wrote "based on our current understanding of the facts, we
believe the documents in the Union-Tribune's possession were acquired through
illegal, improper means after they had been properly disposed of and designated
for destruction. Removal of records from our custody amounts to trespass and
theft, which we diligently seek to deter and prevent."
The statement
also demanded the return of the documents.
In fact, the box containing
the prescriptions was noticed by a Union-Tribune reporter who was exercising his
dogs in the parking lot during his lunch hour Thursday. After realizing what was
inside, he took the box to the newspaper's office in Oceanside. It was retrieved
yesterday afternoon by an investigator for the state Board of Pharmacy.
A spokeswoman for the Pharmacy Board said allowing the slips to turn up
in a public parking lot could be a violation of state privacy
laws, including the Confidentiality of Medical Information Act.
"Pharmacy records are treated just like any other medical records," said
Patricia Harris, the spokeswoman. "They are given the strictest safeguards, with
complete confidentiality to the patient."
Willful violations of the law
can subject a guilty party to fines ranging from $2,500 to
$25,000 per violation, she said. If the disclosed information
is used for financial gain, fines can rise to $250,000.
Consumers who feel their privacy has been violated can file individual
lawsuits. Under the law, a judgment of $1,000 per incident can
be granted, even without proof of actual damages, according to authorities.
Pharmacies are required to maintain prescription records for a minimum
of three years, Harris said. There is no specific required method for the
destruction of such documents, but "the assumption is that a pharmacy would use
a method that would do everything possible to maintain patients' privacy."
Harris said concern over mishandled prescription slips is not just about
privacy.
"There's the concern that someone could use the information to
gain access to drugs illegally," she said.
Investigator Robert Venegas,
who confiscated the slips, said a probe into the discovery would begin almost
immediately.
Area medical and privacy organizations expressed alarm at
the prescription slips being found out in the open.
"It's shocking,"
said Lorraine Montes, a spokeswoman for Sharp Mission Park, Oceanside, whose
physicians were among the hundreds of doctors who had written the prescriptions.
"Patient confidentiality is of utmost concern to us," she said. "We will
conduct an investigation of our own into this."
A spokeswoman at the San
Diego-based Utility Consumers' Action Network, an agency that advocates consumer
privacy protection, called the incident "a violation of trust."
"You're
talking about a relationship between a pharmacist and someone receiving a
medicine that they believe will help their ailments, who then has their privacy
violated," spokeswoman Jodi Beebe said.
"At the very least (the
pharmacy) could have the decency to shred the information. A bottom-of-the-line
shredder goes for $20 nowadays," she said.
Gene Tunick,
executive vice president of the San Diego County Pharmacists Association, said
larger pharmacies typically hire contractors to pick up old prescription records
for proper disposal.
Most of those firms shred the documents, burn them,
or both.
"If you were a private pharmacist, you'd want to shred the
material yourself," he said. "What's happened in this case is just not a good
business practice. My feeling is that (the pharmacy) probably contracted with a
firm that may have mistakenly left a box of prescriptions behind."
GRAPHIC: 2 PICS; 1,2. HOWARD LIPIN /
Union-Tribune; 1. Medical alert: A box containing more than 9,500 prescription
slips was found discarded in a parking lot near a Sav-on in Carlsbad. 2.
Prescription for trouble? A box containing discarded drug prescriptions sat
behind a power transformer a short distance from the Sav-on in Carlsbad Plaza.
(B-4:7)
LOAD-DATE: February 18, 2000
