The US government last week (January 16) filed a nationwide lawsuit alleging that Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA), Boots’ American parent company, “knowingly filled millions of prescriptions that lacked a legitimate medical purpose”.
The civil complaint claimed that since August 2012 WBA, which operates some 8,000 US pharmacies, has “dispensed millions of unlawful prescriptions” that it sought reimbursement for from various government healthcare programmes.
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Among them were alleged scripts for “dangerous and excessive quantities of opioids”, “early refills of opioids” and the “especially dangerous and abused combination of drugs known as the ‘trinity’…made up of an opioid, a benzodiazepine and a muscle relaxant”, the government body said.
It claimed that “Walgreens pharmacists filled these prescriptions despite clear red flags” indicating that the scripts were “highly likely to be unlawful”.
But WBA stressed that its pharmacists filed “legitimate prescriptions…in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations”.
“Ignored” pharmacists
The DOJ alleged that WBA “ignored substantial evidence from multiple sources that its stores were dispensing unlawful prescriptions, including from its own pharmacists and internal data”.
The complaint said that “Walgreens systematically pressured its pharmacists to fill prescriptions quickly without taking the time needed to confirm each prescription’s validity”.
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And it “also allegedly deprived its pharmacists of crucial information, including by preventing pharmacists from warning one another about certain prescribers”, the DOJ added.
The company’s actions “helped to fuel the prescription opioid crisis and…in some particularly tragic instances, patients died after overdosing on opioids shortly after filling unlawful prescriptions at Walgreens”, it said.
Allowed pills to “flow illegally”
“These practices allowed millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to flow illegally out of Walgreens stores,” principal deputy assistant attorney general and DOJ civil division head Brian Boynton said.
“If Walgreens is found liable, it could face civil penalties of up to $80,850 for each unlawful prescription filled in violation of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA),” according to the DOJ.
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WBA could also be slapped with “treble damages and applicable penalties for each prescription paid by federal programs in violation of the False Claims Act (FCA)”, it added.
The lawsuit comes after “four different whistleblowers who previously worked for Walgreens…filed whistleblower actions”.
“Arbitrary rules”
Responding to the lawsuit on Friday (January 17), WBA asked the court to “protect against the government’s attempt to enforce arbitrary ‘rules’ that do not appear in any law or regulation and never went through any official rulemaking process”.
“We will not stand by and allow the government to put our pharmacists in a no-win situation, trying to comply with ‘rules’ that simply do not exist,” it said.
It stressed that it “stands behind” its pharmacists who file “legitimate prescriptions…in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations”.
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“Walgreens has long been a leader in providing education and resources, as well as implementing best-in-class policies and procedures, to help combat opioid misuse and abuse,” WBA said.
“We look forward to the opportunity to defend the professionalism and integrity of our pharmacists,” it added.
Kickback conspiracy
Meanwhile elsewhere in the US, a pharmacist has pleaded guilty “to conspiring to pay kickbacks in exchange for prescription referrals”, the southern Texas US attorney’s office last week (January 17) announced.
A licensed pharmacist and the owner of Pharr Family Pharmacy, 55-year-old John Ageudo Rodriguez admitted he paid “kickbacks in excess of $24m to various marketers” who could “cause prescriptions for expensive compound drugs to be referred to Rodriguez’s pharmacy”, the office said.
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“During the time of the conspiracy, from 2014 to 2016, Rodriguez’s pharmacy billed more than $110m to various federal healthcare benefit programs for compound drugs,” it added.
And last month, the DOJ filed a lawsuit against another US pharmacy multiple CVS alleging its actions also “helped to fuel the opioid crisis” as it “prioritised corporate profits over patient safety”.
