Walgreens to pay $106M to resolve claims of false prescription payments

Walgreens will pay a total of $106 million to resolve multiple lawsuits that alleged the pharmacy chain submitted fraudulent payment claims to government health care programs. These claims involved prescriptions that had been prescribed but never actually dispensed to the patients.

The settlement, announced recently, addresses lawsuits filed in New Mexico, Texas, and Florida by former employees of Walgreens’ pharmacy operations. These lawsuits were initiated under the whistleblower provision of the False Claims Act, which allows private individuals to file suit on behalf of the government and receive a portion of any recovery, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Between 2009 and 2020, Walgreens was accused of improperly billing Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal health care programs for prescriptions that had been processed in their systems but not picked up by patients. This activity raised serious questions about the integrity of the billing practices at the pharmacy chain.

According to the settlement documents, Walgreens has cooperated with investigators during this process. The company claims to have made improvements to its electronic management system to help prevent similar issues from arising in the future.

In a statement issued regarding the settlement, Walgreens acknowledged that a software error led to some of these improper billing occurrences. They clarified that a small number of prescriptions were mistakenly billed to government programs without being picked up by the patients.

“We corrected the error, reported the issue to the government, and voluntarily refunded all overpayments,” Walgreens stated.

As part of the settlement, Walgreens did not admit to any legal wrongdoing or liability related to these cases. It is important to note that the lawsuits were filed by private parties, not by the U.S. Justice Department, as was previously reported.