(NewsNation) — The White House pharmacy failed to properly track, dispense and dispose of controlled substances and provided medical care to ineligible staffers, a new report found.
The Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General received complaints that a senior military medical officer at the White House was acting with “improper medical practices” in 2018 and launched an investigation.
Investigators found the White House Medical Unit’s pharmacy had “systemic” issues, including problems with the dispensing of controlled substances, violations of DoD policy regarding generic prescriptions and providing services to ineligible employees with that cost passed on to taxpayers.
The OIG conducted interviews and reviewed documents from 2009 and 2018 for the report and focused on the Trump administration, through early 2020. The draft report was written in 2020 but held in review until it was released to the White House in July of 2023.
The purpose of the unit is to provide health care for the president and vice president, as well as others at the White House who were DoD beneficiaries.
The OIG found the pharmacy unit failed to properly track controlled substances, did not abide by Drug Enforcement Guidelines for prescribing and dispensing controlled substances. The unit also failed to properly dispose of controlled medications.
The pharmacy also provided over-the-counter medications without a prescription, a violation of DoD policies, according to the report. It also failed to follow policies on generic medications, paying more for name-brand prescriptions on request.
The report detailed improper record-keeping for controlled substances and found that workers left over-the-counter medications in bins for patients to grab, in violation of DoD policies, and did not keep records of medications that were not controlled substances.
One witness interviewed said medications like Ambien or Provigil, prepared for overseas trips, would be given out without verifying the recipient’s ID and in one case, someone asked for Provigil as a “parting gift.”
The unit also allowed patients to request brand-name drugs instead of generics, another violation of policy, one that would cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.
“We concluded that, over a three‑year period, the White House Medical Unit spent an estimated $46,500 for brand name Ambien, which is 174 times more expensive than the generic equivalent. Over the same period, the White House Medical Unit also spent an estimated $98,000 for brand name Provigil, which is 55 times more expensive than the generic equivalent,” the report found.
Investigators also found that White House staff who were not DoD beneficiaries received treatment through the unit without billing them or tracking how many non-eligible patients received care. Because of poor record-keeping, the report could not determine how much taxpayer money was spent covering care for people who should not have been eligible.
The OIG recommended significant changes to the unit and for more oversight to be established to avoid continued issues.