VA to look into overmedication reports at Tomah center
TOMAH, Wis. (AP) - The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is launching an investigation into reports of overmedication and retaliatory management practices at the VA Medical Center in Tomah, the agency said Thursday.
Veterans Health Administration specialists plan to visit the western Wisconsin facility within two weeks to review medication prescription practices, the federal agency said in a statement Thursday afternoon. They also plan to send representatives from the Office of Accountability Review to look into allegations of retaliatory behavior.
"My sense is that this isn't just unique to Tomah," U.S. Rep. Ron Kind, a Democrat whose district includes Tomah. "We have a system-wide issue that needs to be addressed when it comes to pain management with our veterans."
Kind and other Wisconsin lawmakers had sent requests to Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald this week seeking an investigation
Tomah VA spokesman Scott Farley said in a statement the medical center will fully cooperate with the investigation.
A recent story from The Center for Investigative Reporting noted the number of opiates prescribed at the Tomah VA had more than quintupled between 2004 and 2012, even as the number of veterans seeking treatment there has declined. Health care professionals have complained about the medical center's practices for several years.
Kind said he had previously referred a complaint sent to his office in 2011 to the VA inspector general, which conducted an investigation that finished last March.
He did not find out about the results until this past week, according to his office.
He said the inspector general's office later indicated they had "dropped the ball" in not informing him of the results because of what was going on at the Phoenix VA, which became the epicenter of a national scandal over the quality of care for veterans amid allegations that patients were dying while waiting to see a doctor.
He said they didn't find any criminal wrongdoing or activity that indicated gross negligence or malpractice at the Tomah VA, but they did offer recommendations in the March 2014 report.
According to Thursday's Department of Veterans Affairs statement, chief of staff David Houlihan, a psychiatrist, has been temporarily reassigned to pending the outcome of the investigation and won't be seeing patients or prescribing medication.
The statement also said the Tomah center has made changes, including restructuring so that Pharmacy Service would report to the associate director rather than the chief of staff to allow pharmacists to appeal clinical decisions without conflict of interest.
They also moved the most "clinically complex" patients of Houlihan's and his nurse practitioner to other providers, separated high-dose patients' pain management care from their psychiatric care and removed Houlihan as co-chair of the pain committee.