Walgreens agrees to $35M drug-switching settlement
Walgreen Co. has agreed to pay $35 million to the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve allegations that it had switched patients to more expensive drugs to boost its Medicaid reimbursement. In the settlement, Walgreen Co. denies any wrongdoing. The case arose from a whistle-blower suit filed in 2003; the whistleblower asserted that between 2001 and 2005, Walgreens dispensed capsules rather than tablets of generic Zantac and Prozac, and brand-name and generic Eldepryl to Medicaid patients when doctors hadn't specified. Forty-six states and Puerto Rico will share the $16.4 million, and the federal portion of the settlement is $18.6 million. Whistleblower Bernard Listiza should receive a total of $5 million, which will be drawn from those moneys.
To learn more about the case:
- read this Modern Healthcare article (reg. req.)
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Comments
It is amazing how little the big corporate scumbags have to pay when they try to bankrupt the economy. These coroprations look at these fines as just the cost of doing business and factor it into hteir busines model. Of course they are doing everything in their right to maximize profits for themselves. PBMs are a disgrace. They serve no useful purpose. Their activities are against patient and against doctors. The serve to fatten the pockets of the big Pharma and skim off money from each prescription and manage to exist because they corrupt the politicians who vote them into law. . They are exactly like the mafia where money is generated for the organization with no useful work to show for.
Did anyone notice if we got rid of the PBM's we would lower our costs and reduce fraud. Between all of them Express Scripts, Walgreens etc. they have repaid multi millions but we the consumer are getting squeezed and the employers who sign on with these companies thinking they are saving money when they are being bilked and lied to as well. Figure tht one out....it is easy! Get rid of PBM's and go back to the pharmacy, we will save millions!
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