Walgreens pharmacy tech in California accused of impersonating a pharmacist and PIC for ~12 years

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Modest_anteater said:
I worked with one pharmacist that would just shake the bottle to see if it had the correct amount of pills in it instead of counting them.
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Does anyone still believe that Modest Anteater works in pharmacy?
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Modest_anteater said:
I worked with one pharmacist that would just shake the bottle to see if it had the correct amount of pills in it instead of counting them.
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Unbelievable. I bet they were really a tech in disguise.


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Modest_anteater said:
I worked with one pharmacist that would just shake the bottle to see if it had the correct amount of pills in it instead of counting them.
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Really. We were supposed to count them too . You got to be kidding me.
 
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Wow, maybe this is the cause of the pharmacist saturation, all these fake pharmacists taking real jobs from pharmacists.
 
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Deja said:
to be fair... I've met some pharmacists and grad interns where I was just thinking how the hell did they graduate or do they even really check the prescription before verifying?!
But I would have never thought any of them would be fake
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Yup.

I used to get so many "what's wrong with it?" or "They've been taking it a long time" from low-quality pharmacists When I'd question stuff.
 
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Guaranteed this person approved everything under the sun without knowing any DUR. 250 rxs verified per 8hr is no chump change.
 
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CetiAlphaFive said:
This just goes to show that retail pharmacy is truly a joke
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Exactly. And this is why I predict that retail salaries will drop to $70k in the next 3-5 years. Anyone who’s worked retail before knows that pharmacy technicians run a pharmacy, not pharmacists. Pharmacists are only there for legal/compliance reasons because any lay person can verify prescriptions or transfer controlled substances or take prescription orders via phone if they’re trained on how to do it.

For those retail homers who want to defend their turf and say “but only pharmacists can do patient counseling, contraindication checks, drug interaction checks” etc—give me a break. I can train a technician to look something up in Clinical Pharmacology and read it out loud to a patient. Matter of fact I wouldn’t be surprised if we started seeing self-service drug information kiosks/computers popping up outside pharmacies soon.
 
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Pharmacy is a Scam said:
For those retail homers who want to defend their turf and say “but only pharmacists can do patient counseling, contraindication checks, drug interaction checks” etc—give me a break. I can train a technician to look something up in Clinical Pharmacology and read it out to loud to a patient. Matter of fact I wouldn’t be surprised if we started seeing self-service drug information kiosks/computers popping up outside pharmacies soon.
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You are wrong, pharmacists can and do prevent dangerous drug errors and/or drug interactions, that laymen would not and could not catch. When computer programs pop up even the most mild interactions as a high alert, only a trained pharmacist can go through them to see what is valid and what can be ignored. Now does this always happen? No, obviously it didn't happen with the impostor pharmacist. Did patients suffer because of this? Undoubtedly. The pharmacy may not even be aware, if the plaintiff just sued the doctor who made the prescribing error. What this shows is that most people (and lawyers) believe that all pharmacists do is "fill prescriptions", and if the prescription was accurately filled according to what the doctor wrote, then they don't blame the pharmacist, even if the prescription had major issues that a trained pharmacist should have caught and consulted with the doctor on.
 
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Pharmacy is a Scam said:
Exactly. And this is why I predict that retail salaries will drop to $70k in the next 3-5 years. Anyone who’s worked retail before knows that pharmacy technicians run a pharmacy, not pharmacists. Pharmacists are only there for legal/compliance reasons because any lay person can verify prescriptions or transfer controlled substances or take prescription orders via phone if they’re trained on how to do it.

For those retail homers who want to defend their turf and say “but only pharmacists can do patient counseling, contraindication checks, drug interaction checks” etc—give me a break. I can train a technician to look something up in Clinical Pharmacology and read it out loud to a patient. Matter of fact I wouldn’t be surprised if we started seeing self-service drug information kiosks/computers popping up outside pharmacies soon.
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Here's your (you)
 
Yeah, sure, "pharmacy technicians run a pharmacy, not pharmacists" if it's a bad pharmacy, like the Walgreens locations where this fake pharmacist worked
 
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WVUPharm2007 said:
That's some quality flimflammery. That's well over $1 million of ill gotten salary. I'd just pack up the kid, sell everything I had, and move to Vietnam before Johnny Law fully catches up with me. Could live pretty well there assuming she saved a chunk of it.
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If she had only followed your advice...
 
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I like to approach every decision I make as a pharmacist with a mental lawyer check. I envision what a lawyer may do with that information.

This technician is now professionally liable for 3 quarters of a million prescriptions dispensed. Of that mountain of prescriptions I guarantee that there are countless ADRs, improper counselings, and almost endless frivolous lawsuits that can be claimed.

This person has a massive black could following her and she should seriously just move to a different country or something.
 
My wish: may a tv lawyer representing everyone who received these prescriptions sue Happy and Healthy; May insurance claw back every dime; may APhA wake up and ask themselves what this case indicates about the state of the profession
 
owlegrad said:
Ohhh silly me, I thought that already happened lol

Edit: well they sure took their time about it.
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White collar crime, no real precedent, and it's California, where even public safety matters (except freeway repair) are handled when they feel like it. This probably got handed off to a very junior ADA, because this case has to be a slam dunk. The real meaty case, going after Walgreens, is probably for the DA or the AG to deal with (and no doubt they are fighting behind the scenes over jurisdiction over who gets the big kill).
 
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To be frank with you, a PA if trained under a Doctor. Tech under a hospital pharmacist. Can do the job if they are trained for many years. Thats how apprenticeship started back then with no degrees
 
Lubeckd said:
To be frank with you, a PA if trained under a Doctor. Tech under a hospital pharmacist. Can do the job if they are trained for many years. Thats how apprenticeship started back then with no degrees
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They can pretend to do the job, like the majority of Walgreens or CVS pharmacists.

If you put 90% of retail RPhs on the spot and asked them to actually use their degree, they'd just make up a law saying they aren't allowed to.
 
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She’s probably better than the random pharmacist who told one of my patients that brands were better than generics.

Took me about 5 minutes to undo that stupidity.

I’m also surprised she didn’t run....unless she’ll get a plea deal or minimal time in jail, she’s pretty well not a risk to civil society.

Any civil actions against her...she’ll just file for bankruptcy. If she put away a fair amount (correct me if I’m wrong), 401k’s tend to be untouchable.
 
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Here’s a better article with more details, she was charged by they state attorney general for felony false impersonation and identity theft:

www.google.com

Attorney general files criminal charges against Bay Area Walgreens’ fake pharmacist

Kim Thien Le, of Milpitas, is facing three felony charges of false personation, identity theft, and obtaining money, labor or property by false pretenses.
www.google.com www.google.com

The pharmacies in question have settled for a mid-6 figure sum.
 
She made bail and is charged in Alameda County Superior Court. I wasted a dollar mistakenly going through their civil case portal, but here are the official charges I extracted from her case (as well as my notes about the maximum jail time and fines). In my opinion, she will likely take a plea deal, serve 6 months in county jail (more like 2-3 with early release), pay a fine, and i'm sure there's going to be some civil forfeiture going on:

19-CR-011517 | The People of the State of California vs. LE, KIM THIEN

Case Number
19-CR-011517
Court
Criminal Manager-Dublin-ECHOJ
File Date
07/25/2019
Case Type
Felony
Case Status
Active

PC529(a)(3)-F: UNLAWFULLY AND FALSELY PERSONATE IN A PRIVATE AND OFFICIAL CAPACITY

**Felony false personation carries a potential fine of up to ten thousand dollars ($10,000), and a potential sentence of sixteen (16) months, two (2) years or three (3) years (which in most cases will be served in the county jail under California's realignment program).5
PC530.5(a)-F: IDENTITY THEFT

**Up to 3 years in jail, $10,000 fine max.
PC532(a)-F: OBTAINING MONEY, LABOR OR PROPERTY BY FALSE PRETENSES-OVER $950 53


**The maximum penalty for grand theft is EITHER up to one (1) year in county jail, OR sixteen (16) months, two (2) years, or three (3) years in prison, depending on how the prosecutor chooses to charge the crime
 
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Walgreens got off pretty light (so far?). Compare these fines Walgreens got for pharmacists failing to provide counseling ("health risk") and Walmart pharmacists failing to document code 1 restrictions (this has no patient safety implications whatsoever)

www.pleasantonweekly.com

Pharmacist counseling failures to cost Walgreens $502,200

Walgreens, which has a district office here and pharmacies in Pleasanton and Livermore, agreed to pay $502,200 in a settlement with Alameda County District Attorney Nancy E. O'Malley over the failure of its pharmacists to properly counsel prescription customers.
www.pleasantonweekly.com www.pleasantonweekly.com
www.justice.gov

Wal-Mart Pays $1.65M to Settle False Claims Act Allegations of Improper Medi Cal Billings

www.justice.gov www.justice.gov
 
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I gotta say, this was a one-off for the pharmacies, not a systemic pattern that put patients at risk. The potential civil liability is going to be much greater, and the AG probably was satisfied with the changes already made (ya know, like making sure your pharmacists are actual pharmacists).
 
This is a serious question.

If the drug databases all crashed and a pharmacists only had access to the patient's med list are they comfortable dispensing a new medication given their many years of training? Would they be comfortable 90% of the time, 50% of the time or 10% of the time by knowing most medication interactions?

If this is yes, then Pharmacists are valuable. If the answer is no, then what is the point of the years of knowledge when you have to depend on a program to tell you what the interactions are?

For most physicians, if the internet goes down, we all can function well with just the knowledge, training, and experience that we have. I may do an up to date search once a week to get clarity on current practice.
 
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emergentmd said:
This is a serious question.

If the drug databases all crashed and a pharmacists only had access to the patient's med list are they comfortable dispensing a new medication given their many years of training? Would they be comfortable 90% of the time, 50% of the time or 10% of the time by knowing most medication interactions?

If this is yes, then Pharmacists are valuable. If the answer is no, then what is the point of the years of knowledge when you have to depend on a program to tell you what the interactions are?

For most physicians, if the internet goes down, we all can function well with just the knowledge, training, and experience that we have. I may do an up to date search once a week to get clarity on current practice.
Click to expand...

Can't speak for all pharmacists, particularly some of the newer ones, but I believe most pharmacists are comfortable with 99% of medications. It's the occasional rare medication (chemos for most pharmacists) or sometimes pediatric/infant medication that may require looking or double-checking a reference.
 
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emergentmd said:
For most physicians, if the internet goes down, we all can function well with just the knowledge, training, and experience that we have.
Click to expand...

If that were true, pharmacists would hardly even need to do anything. Every pharmacist has countless stories of times they have saved someone’s life when they were prescribed something erroneously. You may think you “function well” without a computer program checking your work but I am confident that a pharmacist has saved you a time or two. If not, congratulations being perfect and I wish more people could say the same.

In reality, computers do a better job than humans catching interactions. Pharmacist do a better job then computers at determining which ones are actually relevant. It’s not a matter of needing a computer to catch interactions, it’s that computers can do it better.
 
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emergentmd said:
This is a serious question.

If the drug databases all crashed and a pharmacists only had access to the patient's med list are they comfortable dispensing a new medication given their many years of training? Would they be comfortable 90% of the time, 50% of the time or 10% of the time by knowing most medication interactions?

If this is yes, then Pharmacists are valuable. If the answer is no, then what is the point of the years of knowledge when you have to depend on a program to tell you what the interactions are?

For most physicians, if the internet goes down, we all can function well with just the knowledge, training, and experience that we have. I may do an up to date search once a week to get clarity on current practice.
Click to expand...

Inpatient, I personally only dig into the databases when it's a weird/unique drug and/or drug combo I may have never seen before with an elevated risk profile.

Pretty much everything interacts and fires in most checking databases, the real talent is going to be discerning clinically significant ones from stupid ones.

Oncology is different though, that's 100% I'm looking at NCCN guidelines to verify the regimen, unless it's something tried and true like dose dense AC in breast or FOLFOX/FOLFIRI in colorectal. But that's not really comparable since that's mostly a drug-disease matchup vs. drug-drug interaction, but similar in that it's a database/lit check all the same.
 
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Walgreens got off VERY light. I wonder if they had to contact all patients?
 
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emergentmd said:
For most physicians, if the internet goes down, we all can function well with just the knowledge, training, and experience that we have. I may do an up to date search once a week to get clarity on current practice.
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I think you've brought up an interesting point.
I'll verify an answer I'm 90% sure about.
I haven't been to medical school, but it seems that at a certain point, physicians are trained to assume their first answer is correct.
I'm not implying that that's "wrong", as it may be useful for the way y'all practice.

I'd be willing to bet that 99% of the pharmacists that you've asked knew the answer but still went to confirm it.
 
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emergentmd said:
This is a serious question.
If the drug databases all crashed and a pharmacists only had access to the patient's med list are they comfortable dispensing a new medication given their many years of training? Would they be comfortable 90% of the time, 50% of the time or 10% of the time by knowing most medication interactions?
If this is yes, then Pharmacists are valuable. If the answer is no, then what is the point of the years of knowledge when you have to depend on a program to tell you what the interactions are?
For most physicians, if the internet goes down, we all can function well with just the knowledge, training, and experience that we have. I may do an up to date search once a week to get clarity on current practice.
Click to expand...


I would say I'd be 99% comfortable with the drugs I work with everyday. With drugs in general, more like 80%, I don't know much about chemotherapy (other than common ones like taxol, fluorouracil), biologicals (I know there are treatments for cystic fibrosis and other rare diseases, but I don't know anything about the specifics), or esoteric drugs (like snake venom antidote, I've only dispensed that once, and we had to have an employee drive several hours to get it from another hospital.) But I would imagine it is the same for you, if you aren't an oncologist, you probably know very little about cancer and chemo treatments as well. But like others have said, if I'm asked a non-emergent question, unless it is something very basic, I will double check by looking it up. Because why not? The more redundancy in medicine, the less likely for errors.
 
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CetiAlphaFive said:
I once had an African American graveyard shift pharmacist ask me what part of India my family was from.

I'm 6'3", and about the same skin tone as Diego Luna.

Lmao
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LMAO HAHA funny isnt it

Why is it that people feel the need to keyboard warrior online? why dont you go tell one of your indian patients your mistaken identity story and see how they react?

reported for racism
 
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emergentmd said:
This is a serious question.

If the drug databases all crashed and a pharmacists only had access to the patient's med list are they comfortable dispensing a new medication given their many years of training? Would they be comfortable 90% of the time, 50% of the time or 10% of the time by knowing most medication interactions?

If this is yes, then Pharmacists are valuable. If the answer is no, then what is the point of the years of knowledge when you have to depend on a program to tell you what the interactions are?

For most physicians, if the internet goes down, we all can function well with just the knowledge, training, and experience that we have. I may do an up to date search once a week to get clarity on current practice.
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like a student making a comment. Are you still in school?

I had to literally re-direct a physician 2 days ago about the difference between trazodone and duloxetine. The thought was one is a SSRI that causes drowsiness and the other SSRI has less drowsiness. We had a nice little inservice at that point.

So that wheel rolls both ways. Anyway, the true issue is when we get put into retail, it is easy to forget the following: antibiotic guidelines, chemotherapeutic drugs, iv drugs, etc (stuff we just don’t get involved with). Is that a disgrace to our profession? I don’t think so - it’s just how the world of retail pharmacy evolved
 
Rich91 said:
LMAO HAHA funny isnt it

Why is it that people feel the need to keyboard warrior online? why dont you go tell one of your indian patients your mistaken identity story and see how they react?

reported for racism
Click to expand...

I am so confused
 
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JustFillIt said:
Sounds to me like a student making a comment. Are you still in school?

I had to literally re-direct a physician 2 days ago about the difference between trazodone and duloxetine. The thought was one is a SSRI that causes drowsiness and the other SSRI has less drowsiness. We had a nice little inservice at that point.

So that wheel rolls both ways. Anyway, the true issue is when we get put into retail, it is easy to forget the following: antibiotic guidelines, chemotherapeutic drugs, iv drugs, etc (stuff we just don’t get involved with). Is that a disgrace to our profession? I don’t think so - it’s just how the world of retail pharmacy evolved
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Exactly. We specialize in what we are exposed to each day. For example, do hospital pharmacists know the existence of new drugs in the care of community patients? Shingrix? dosing for Shingrix? Brands -> generics now. Community is exposed to all sorts of new medications because we see them being dispensed and research into them for educating ourselves and patients.
 
Rich91 said:
LMAO HAHA funny isnt it
Why is it that people feel the need to keyboard warrior online? why dont you go tell one of your indian patients your mistaken identity story and see how they react?
reported for racism
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¿Aiskuismi?
Where is there even a hint of negative connotation? I think you should see someone to help you think outside of your personal insecurities.
Are you upset because your height starts with 5?

Furthermore, I'm Mexican.
Therefore, I have less social power than Indians in America as evidenced by social metrics (average income, etc) and cannot possibly be racist against them.

Do you think black people can be racist against white people?
You need to check your privilege.
 
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CetiAlphaFive said:
¿Aiskuismi?
Where is there even a hint of negative connotation? I think you should see someone to help you think outside of your personal insecurities.
Are you upset because your height starts with 5?

Furthermore, I'm Mexican.
Therefore, I have less social power than Indians in America as evidenced by social metrics (average income, etc) and cannot possibly be racist against them.

Do you think black people can be racist against white people?
You need to check your privilege.
Click to expand...

Quick point of privilege! My name is Justfillit, pronouns he/him...

I just want to say.... well I guess I don’t really have anything to say, I have just always wanted to open my statement like that
 
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Rich91 said:
LMAO HAHA funny isnt it

Why is it that people feel the need to keyboard warrior online? why dont you go tell one of your indian patients your mistaken identity story and see how they react?

reported for racism
Click to expand...

Eh?
 
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CetiAlphaFive said:
Furthermore, I'm Mexican.
Therefore, I have less social power than Indians in America as evidenced by social metrics (average income, etc) and cannot possibly be racist against them.
Click to expand...

What does that have to do with anything? I remember you implying that I was sexist because I used "she" in reference to a nurse, even though I'm a female (and I guarantee nurses have more political power, both in the workplace and in real life, than a lowly pharmacist like me has)

I will say, I didn't see anything racist in your original statement, but then I didn't see anything sexist in the statement you called me out for, so maybe I'm not the best judge.
 
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