Fired NLV officer’s rights may have been violated

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Monday, July 23, 2001 | 10:53 a.m.

A state Board of Pharmacy hearing Wednesday will determine whether patient privacy laws were violated by a pharmacist who called the North Las Vegas Police to report one of its officers filling numerous prescriptions for controlled substances.

Gina Carmody, 27, was fired after the North Las Vegas Police Department received information about her prescriptions from the pharmacist. Sean McGowan, North Las Vegas city attorney, declined to comment on the circumstances surrounding Carmody's termination.

Scott Larsen, a pharmacist at Walgreen's, 2280 N. Las Vegas Blvd., contacted the North Las Vegas Police Aug. 23 of last year, according to documents filed with the state pharmacy board. Larsen told police officials that Carmody, in uniform, had been in the day before and had a prescription for a controlled substance filled. Larsen also told police that Carmody had prescriptions filled for other narcotics at various pharmacies.

The police sent a detective to the pharmacy later that day, and Larsen gave police a copy of Carmody's patient profile, which detailed her prescriptions and listed doctors and pharmacies she had visited.

Larsen, who has no prior record of misconduct with the state board, is charged with providing confidential information without lawful authorization. His attorney, Robert Graham, declined to comment.

Joseph Kellogg, a member of the State Board of Pharmacy, said today there are no required written steps a pharmacist is supposed to take when reporting suspected drug abuse. Instead a pharmacist is supposed to use his "professional judgment" and can contact the board's task force for controlled substances or the patient's doctor, Kellogg said.

"Suspected drug abuse is a broad term and often it's in the eye of the beholder," said Kellogg, who works at a Henderson Rite Aid.

Carmody protested her termination from the police force, and the dispute was handed over to an arbitrator for resolution. Her attorney, Adam Levine, said he has advised Carmody not to talk to reporters until the arbitration is resolved.

Here's how the situation unfolded, according to the state board's report:

Carmody injured her shoulder in 1999 and began taking prescription controlled substances for the pain. At some point Carmody became addicted and began visiting numerous doctors. She took the various prescriptions to different pharmacies to be filled. Carmody voluntarily checked herself in for five days of treatment at Monte Vista Hospital Aug. 16 of last year. That same day, the Nevada Prescription Controled Substances Abuse Task Force began looking at Carmody's history of prescription drug use.

The task force put together a patient profile of Carmody, which detailed all of the doctors who had written her prescriptions, the pharmacies that had filled the prescriptions and details about the controlled substances that had been prescribed. The complete list, in spread-sheet form, was sent to all of the pharmacies and doctors listed in the profile.

Attached to the profile was a letter stating that the information was confidential and "cannot be disseminated publicly or given to other pharmacies where the profiled patient is not a customer."

Carmody checked out of Monte Vista Aug. 20. She continued to receive controlled substances from her doctor and took a prescription to the North Las Vegas Boulevard Walgreen's Aug. 22. The following day Larsen called the chief of police of North Las Vegas to report Carmody's activities.