On February 4, 2020, an article about a Walgreens employee impersonating a pharmacist came out. She used license numbers of registered pharmacists in order to give out prescriptions at Walgreens stores. This person has illegally filled more than 745,000 prescriptions including over 100,000 prescriptions of opioids. Walgreens has to pay $7.5 million in penalties, cost, and remedial payments.
Walgreens was not able to verify this employee’s identity and put hundreds and thousands of customers at risk. This person has probably prescribed several wrong prescriptions which endangered the health of the consumers.Impersonation happens all the time in our society; this is why I believe background checks are essential when hiring a potential candidate, especially in the medical industry.
In the medical industry, you are dealing with people’s lives. If you prescribe the wrong medication, you could be putting a person’s life at risk. It is important to make sure that places like Walgreens conduct proper background checks in order to make sure that all their employees have the proper qualifications for the positions that they are applying for.Â
I am sure that most places do a background check before hiring a new employee, but how seriously do they take these background checks? I hope that Walgreens did a background check on the impersonator before she was hired. However, they were not able to catch that she was not actually a licensed Pharmacist or that lied about graduating and getting her degree.
One of the main reasons that background checks are important is to provide a safe environment for employees and customers alike. Walgreens had neglected to do this and put several of their customers’ lives in danger.
By doing a background check on a potential employee’s criminal history and education history, it helps companies avoid liability, and helps ensures that a company has made the right decision in hiring an employee.
This makes me question whether all the Walgreens do proper background checks when hiring potential employees. Although this occurrence has only happened at the Walgreens in San Francisco, it could be happening anywhere else, it could be happening somewhere else without anyone realizing it.Â
When customers go to Walgreens to get their prescriptions, they put their trust in the Walgreens employees to give them the proper prescription, whether it is medication for something minor, such as common colds, or for more serious illnesses.
A lot of people get their prescriptions from Walgreens, but now we do not know if we can really trust what they give to us.Â
I feel that Walgreens has to improve the system that they use to do background checks (assuming that they did a background check on the impersonator), so that they do not put their customers’ lives in danger. This would help Walgreens percent employing another impersonator like her moving forward.Â
I hope that other companies use Walgreens’ mistake as a learning experience so that they do not make the same mistake. Instead, they should do proper background checks on potential employees that they want to hire.
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