Nurse practitioner charged with writing 52 painkiller, stimulant prescriptions for friends, family – WTAE Pittsburgh

NORTH HUNTINGDON, Pa. —

A nurse practitioner is charged with writing more than 50 fraudulent prescriptions for family and friends who were not under her care.

Amy Ann Busch, 49, of Jeannette, was arraigned Tuesday afternoon in five separate criminal cases. She was released on $50,000 unsecured bond.

Investigators from North Huntingdon police, the Westmoreland County Drug Task Force and the state Attorney General’s office worked together to uncover the prescriptions, some of which dated back to 2014.

North Huntingdon Detective Kirk Youngstead said workers at a doctor’s office noticed suspicious activity on one of their patient’s schedule two narcotic reports and called police. Investigators said Busch, who was a hospice nurse for Heartland Hospice at the time, wrote 52 prescriptions for family and friends who were not under her care.

The prescriptions included schedule two painkillers and stimulants, according to an affidavit of probable cause. Two of the patients were Busch’s family members, one was a friend, one was a coworker and the fifth person’s relationship to Busch is unknown. At her arraignment, Busch told the court that she did not write the fifth person a prescription and that she doesn’t know that person.

Busch’s family member received 30 prescriptions and a friend received 19, according to investigators. The final three patients each received one script.

Busch was offered an opportunity to tell her side of the story to Pittsburgh’s Action News 4, but declined.

Heartland Hospice spokeswoman Kelly Kessler said Busch is no longer with the company.

“We understand that a former employee was arrested for writing prescriptions. The incident was unrelated to the care and services Heartland provides and did not affect any patients. We cooperated with the authorities during their investigation,” Kessler said. “We take any allegations of inappropriate behavior seriously and have zero tolerance for any abuse of the system. The nurse is no longer associated with Heartland.

“Heartland is committed to delivering quality of care to the patients in our community. We have high standards for our employees and the level of care they provide. As proper procedure, we perform background checks on all new employees. A background check was completed on this employee.”