MILWAUKEE COUNTY

Inspector general reviews opioid prescribing practices at Milwaukee's Zablocki VA

Bill Glauber
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A government inspector general Tuesday called for an expert panel to review the opioid prescribing practices of a physician at the Clement J. Zablocki Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The unnamed physician is a psychiatrist who treats some of the most complex cases of addiction and has a proven track record of success, a Zablocki VA spokesman said.

Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee.

"We have reviewed his practices and we are confident that he is providing outstanding care to our veterans," said Gary Kunich, the spokesman.

"We make every effort to treat all our veterans with the best and most-safe and most-effective care anywhere," he added.

The VA inspector general conducted an investigation from January 2015 through March 2016 after receiving requests from Wisconsin lawmakers U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore of Milwaukee and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

"Some of the findings in this report are two years old and while some changes have already occurred at the facility, a provider with questionable prescribing practices is only now coming to light — this is unacceptable," Baldwin said in a statement. "This is about the safety of our veterans, and our veterans deserve swift action on this matter. If the VA finds this provider put our veterans at risk, then the VA must remove this provider from seeing patients and terminate their employment at the VA."

During a visit in April 2015, investigators said they "did not find evidence of opioid diversion, criminal, or illegal activities associated with opioid prescriptions dispensed at the facility," the inspector general report said.

But the investigators "substantiated that a provider prescribed opioid medications for some patients in a manner that varied from clinical guidelines and other providers at the facility."

The report raised concern that the level of monitoring of several of the provider's patients was below what it should have been.

The report also found that "facility managers did not track patients prescribed Suboxone as part of their monitoring of opioid prescribing." Suboxone is used to treat patients addicted to opioids.

The report said VA health care providers were not fully accessing the prescription drug monitoring program database, which is designed to stop patients from "doctor shopping."

The Zalbocki VA noted that providers used the database 309 times in 2014 and 1,080 times in 2015. In the past year, the database was checked each time a veteran was prescribed opioids.

Kunich said the Zablocki VA prescribes opioids at below the national VA average.