Posted on 06/05/2008 4:04:18 PM PDT by TennesseeGirl
The Walgreen Co, which operates Walgreens drug stores, has agreed to stop altering prescriptions without physician approval as part of a multi-state agreement to settle allegations of improper billing, according to Tennessee Attorney General Bob Cooper.
Walgreens was accused of switching the dosage forms on three medications commonly prescribed for Medicaid patients without doctor approvals in order to boost profits. This resulted in Medicaid programs nationwide paying much more for the medications than they normally would have, according to a press release by the attorney general’s office. Walgreen Co. agreed to comply with state and federal laws on the matter, plus pay $35 million to the federal government, 42 states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.(excerpted)
(Excerpt) Read more at knoxnews.com ...
Ok, how much did Walgreen’s scam off of the government (and, in effect, all of US)? What is the exact figure they stole?
Everyone that had anything to do with this, from the executive suite to the pharmacy techs, needs to do several years in a federal pen.
I know someone who altered just one perscription and got 6 months in jail for it. (No it wasn't I).
I fought a battle with them out here in California last year. They tried to switch me to a generic, I pointed out to them that the prescription said ‘dispense as written’, so they then tried to charge me a premium claiming I’d chosen the brand name. We got that straightened out and the next month they claimed they’d called the doctor and he’d okayed the switch to generic. I called him and he said he’d done no such thing. Then they tried to claim my drug plan wanted them to switch, and the drug plan said they wanted whatever the doctor wanted. It took several months and a couple of “pitched fits” on my part to get them to fill the prescription the way it was written.
If memory serves, they were recently defendants in a rather large civil action involving an unauthorized switch that allegedly proved fatal to the customer. Oklahoma, Missouri, somewhere around there.
5 to 10 and several thousands in fines.
Off topic, but, I just noticed the source of the article. Do you follow Instapundit at all? Glenn’s been posting some really pretty pictures of Knoxville the last few weeks. Looks like a really neat place.
$35 million is a drop in the bucket for them unfortunately.
I wouldn't waste my time playing with these jerks if their is competition.
My pharmacy is CVS and has been for years. Excellent service, I have never had a problem, even when my doctor is late in re submitting my prescriptions, they will loan me enough pills until he does
I'm sure some heads will roll over this
I gave up on Walgreens. They could never fill the perscriptions correctly and were charging an arm and a leg for genetics. The final straw for me was when I learned that an $84.00 generic at Walgreens was only $4.00 at WalMart.
And nobody has even tried to calculate the chaos and confusion that resulted from Walgreen’s swapping Grandpa’s prescription for Magnesium Citrate for some generic stuff called Sildenafil Citrate.
Interestingly enough, one of the reported (rare) side effects of Sildenafil is vision loss. Do you suppose mom was right after all?
Could you repost that in a larger font please? ;)
According to the website linked to in post #13, CVS has been in trouble for doing the same thing as Walgreens and has paid a $37 million fine.
I live in western PA, and Walgreen’s didn’t have any stores out here until about 2 years ago. Within a 1 mile stretch of highway near me, there is Wal-Mart, Rite-Aid, local grocery store pharmacy, and they’re building a new Walgreen’s. Something’s gotta give.
You mean Walgreens, a liberal owned company was cheatin’ the gubmint?
Why, never.
I used to work for them. Cheap they are.
This more grist for the anti-business yahoo’s to pounce on and demand more government.
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