Walgreens has agreed to pay $106.8 million to resolve allegations of violating the False Claims Act by fraudulently billing government healthcare programs for prescriptions never dispensed, the Department of Justice said in a Sept. 13 news release.
The DOJ alleged that Walgreens submitted false billing requests to Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health programs between 2009 and 2020. According to the DOJ, Walgreens had improperly billed for prescriptions that were processed but never picked up by the patients. Despite not providing the medications, the pharmaceutical company collected tens of millions of dollars from federal health programs.
As a result, the federal government will recover $91.9 million from the settlement, while individual states will receive a total of $14.9 million to be distributed through separate agreements with states.
The case was brought to light through whistleblower actions under the False Claims Act by Steve Turck, former Walgreens pharmacy manager and Andrew Bustos, former pharmacy district supervisor. Under the provisions of the law, Turck will receive $14.9 million for his role in exposing the alleged fraud and Bustos will receive $1.6 million.
Walgreens has not responded to Becker's request for comment at this time.