Veterans Affairs hired nurse who wrote fake prescription
On July 21, 2017, Casey Branscum drove his truck to a Walgreens drivethru in Oklahoma City and handed the pharmacy employee a prescription for 120 tablets of Percocet.
The employee, noticing the prescription was the wrong color, called the doctor whose name was on it and found it was a forgery, according to an officer at the scene. Branscum, 29, was arrested in the Walgreens drive-thru lane and soon charged with attempting to obtain a controlled dangerous substance by fraud, a felony he would later plead guilty to.
At the time, Branscum worked as a nurse at an Oklahoma City nursing home and could reasonably expect his career would be harmed by the incident. But within two months of his arrest, Branscum had another job in Oklahoma City. It, too, involved nursing homes.
Word arrived in the email inbox of Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs employees on Sept. 18, 2017.
“Please join me in welcoming Casey Branscum to the ODVA team,” wrote Tina Williams, the agency’s compliance director. She said the 29-yearold had 14 years of long-term care experience.
Branscum, who two months earlier had broken the law by writing a fake painkiller prescription, was tasked with reviewing medical records to ensure compliance with rules and regulations. His starting salary was $43,662.
News of Branscum’s prior misdeeds “spread like wildfire” through the state’s seven veterans centers,
one longtime employee recalled. Staff whispered to each other about the new guy, the one who was an accused felon. Rumors spread about his closeness to Williams, who lives on the same street in Yukon as Branscum. Disaffection with central office in Oklahoma City, already running high, only escalated.
“People were just flabbergasted that they’d hire someone like that,” said another employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “But you just knew not to ask about it.”
Employees sounded off to state auditors, who were preparing a report at the time on low morale and toxic leadership within Veterans Affairs. Branscum’s hiring showcased a double standard, veterans center employees felt, between their ethically upstanding facilities and a central office that had lost its way.
“It was unethical for him to be hired with the charges pending,” one employee said, according to auditors’ notes obtained by The Oklahoman in an open records request. “We would not hire an employee at one of the facilities under those circumstances.”
'He has since been highly successful'
Shane Faulkner, a spokesman for Veterans Affairs, says Branscum does not dispense drugs or directly care for veterans. Branscum was forthcoming about his past when hired, proactively sought out treatment programs
and voluntarily entered into a peer review program, which he continues to participate in, Faulkner said.
In January, Branscum pleaded guilty and was given a three-year deferred sentence as part of an agreement with prosecutors, according to court documents. He was ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings weekly for six months and pay $440 in court costs.
Two months later, Branscum was promoted at Veterans Affairs. He oversaw implementation of Point Click Care, a computer program for storage of medical records, which he had prior experience with during his time at private nursing homes.
“He has since been highly successful in this task,” Faulkner said.
Branscum, who did not respond to a request for comment, has received four raises since he started at Veterans Affairs less than a year ago — he now earns $63,662 — and has been an impressive employee, according to the agency’s spokesman.
Last month, it was Branscum who granted Veterans Affairs employees access to patients' medical records on their cellphones. Depending who you ask, that was either a brilliant decision that allowed hundreds of veterans to receive critical medication or a major mistake that brought the agency under federal investigation.
On July 25, a scheduled internet outage had the unintended effect of preventing employees at Veterans Affairs centers in Norman and Lawton from accessing medical records through Point Click Care. Branscum coped
by granting employees access to the medical records system on smartphones during the outage.
Three Democratic lawmakers alleged the access was a violation of federal privacy laws and should result in the firing of agency leaders. Those leaders have praised the decision.
"He was the person on ODVA staff with sufficient knowledge to know how to provide access to
the on-the-ground providers during the network outage caused by the Office of Management and Enterprise Services," Faulkner said of Branscum. "And, because he made that decision, hundreds of Oklahoma veterans were able to receive their medications in a timely manner."
The state's chief information security officer conducted a one-day inquiry and found no privacy
law violations. The matter has been sent to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for review.
Jerry Pearce, the chairman of a group fighting relocation of the Talihina Veterans Center and a leading critic of Veterans Affairs leadership, said Branscum’s employment further proves there are failures at the agency's central office.
“ODVA’s hiring of Casey
Branscum, someone of proven disreputable character, while firing or forcing retirement of employees who have faithfully worked many years, is just another example of the hostile work environment that the recent state audit pointed out,” Pearce said. “They hire their friends or cronies, competent or not, and give them raises while ignoring other ODVA employees who have not had raises in years.”