Columbia pharmacist gave customers extra pills, submitted fraudulent claims: police

A Columbia pharmacist routinely gave customers extra pills in their prescriptions and submitted fraudulent pharmacy claims, according to investigators.

Richard Boahene, 40, of East Hempfield Township, is charged with delivery of a controlled substance, making false statements and Medicaid fraud and related offenses according to court documents. Boahene is the owner and sole proprietor of Qwik-Med Pharmacy at 369 Locust Street in Columbia.

In Oct. 2020, Boahene changed the prescription of a confidential informant posing as a customer who asked Boahene if he could add more Adderall pills to their prescription, claiming they owed someone pills, according to a criminal complaint. Boahene added two more pills to the customer's prescription, doing so without consulting the doctor who wrote the prescription. 

When asked about changing the prescription, Boahene told investigators that the customer told him that they needed the extra pills because they lost some, according to the criminal complaint. When investigators executed a search warrant at the pharmacy in December 2020, investigators determined that more than 300 Adderall tablets were missing – Boahene told investigators it was the result of a "dispensing error" and that he gave customers more tablets than their prescriptions allowed, but that he hadn't reported it yet, according to the complaint.

From 2020 through 2022, Boahene submitted fraudulent pharmacy claims to AmeriHealth, who then reimbursed the pharmacy with more than $80,0000 in Medical Assistance Funding, according to the complaint.

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