By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) -Walgreens Boots Alliance agreed to pay $106.8 million to settle expenses it fraudulently billed the U.S. authorities for prescriptions that have been by no means disbursed, the Division of Justice stated on Friday.
The Justice Division stated Walgreens violated the federal False Claims Act between 2009 and 2020 by submitting fee claims to Medicare, Medicaid and different healthcare packages for prescriptions it processed however which have been by no means picked up.
This prompted the pharmacy chain to obtain tens of tens of millions of {dollars} for prescriptions it by no means supplied to sufferers, the division stated.
“Federal well being care packages present crucial well being care companies to tens of millions of People,” stated Brian Boynton, head of the Justice Division’s civil division. “We’ll maintain accountable those that abuse these packages by knowingly billing for items or companies they didn’t present.”
Walgreens, primarily based in Deerfield, Illinois, didn’t admit legal responsibility in agreeing to settle.
“On account of a software program error, we inadvertently billed some authorities well being care packages for a comparatively small variety of prescriptions our sufferers submitted however by no means picked up,” Walgreens stated in an announcement.
“We corrected the error, reported the difficulty to the federal government and voluntarily refunded all overpayments.”
Friday’s settlement resolves three whistleblower lawsuits filed in Florida, New Mexico and Texas.
The Justice Division stated the payout took into consideration Walgreens’ cooperation and its “important” steps to improve its in-house pharmacy administration system to make sure that the billing issues do not occur once more.
Walgreens beforehand refunded $66.3 million for the settled claims and is being credited for this quantity.
The chain lately operated about 8,600 shops in america, however stated in June it plans to shut a major variety of underperforming shops over the following few years.
Steven Turck, a former Walgreens pharmacy supervisor who filed the Texas case, will obtain $14.92 million from the settlement. Andrew Bustos, a former Walgreens district pharmacy supervisor who filed the New Mexico case, will obtain $1.62 million.
Walgreens Boots (NASDAQ:) shares closed on Friday up 37 cents, or 4.2%, at $9.21.
