In an aerial view, a buyer enters a Walgreens retailer on Jan.4, 2024 in San Pablo, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Photos
The Department of Justice mentioned Friday that it sued pharmacy big Walgreens for allegedly dishing out thousands and thousands of illegal prescriptions.
The DOJ mentioned that Walgreens from August 2012 till the current “knowingly” crammed these prescriptions, which “lacked a authentic medical goal, weren’t legitimate, and/or weren’t issued within the typical course {of professional} follow.”
“This lawsuit seeks to carry Walgreens accountable for the various years that it failed to satisfy its obligations when dishing out harmful opioids and different medication,” mentioned Principal Deputy Assistant Legal professional Basic Brian Boynton, head of the DOJ’s Civil Division.
Boynton mentioned that Walgreens pharmacists crammed thousands and thousands of prescriptions with “clear crimson flags that indicated the prescriptions have been extremely more likely to be illegal.”
The corporate “systematically pressured its pharmacists to fill prescriptions, together with managed substance prescriptions, with out taking the time wanted to verify their validity,” Boynton mentioned. “These practices allowed thousands and thousands of opioid capsules and different managed substances to circulation illegally out of Walgreens shops.”
Some Walgreens sufferers died of overdose deaths shortly after getting invalid prescriptions crammed at Walgreens, the DOJ alleges.
The 300-page lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court docket in Chicago.
Walgreens in a press release mentioned, “We’re asking the courtroom to make clear the obligations of pharmacies and pharmacists and to guard towards the federal government’s try and implement arbitrary ‘guidelines’ that don’t seem in any regulation or regulation and by no means went by any official rulemaking course of.”
“We is not going to stand by and permit the federal government to put our pharmacists in a no-win state of affairs, making an attempt to adjust to ‘guidelines’ that merely don’t exist,” Walgreens mentioned.
“Walgreens stands behind our pharmacists, devoted healthcare professionals who reside within the communities they serve, filling authentic prescriptions for FDA-approved medicines written by DEA-licensed prescribers in accordance with all relevant legal guidelines and laws.”
The swimsuit alleges that though Walgreens issued written insurance policies that mirrored its understanding of authorized obligations, the corporate took different actions which it knew prevented its pharmacists from complying with them.
“Walgreens prioritized income over security and compliance by implementing insurance policies and practices that required pharmacists to fill prescriptions shortly and left pharmacists with out sufficient time or assets to train their corresponding accountability,” the swimsuit mentioned.
“One such metric was ‘Confirm By Promise Time’ (VBPT), which anticipated a pharmacist to fill a prescription inside quarter-hour for a ‘waiter’ (a buyer ready within the pharmacy retailer for the prescription),” the swimsuit alleges.
“Walgreens additionally tracked pharmacists that distributed a low fee of managed substances by its ‘Non-dispensing Pharmacist Report,’ ” the swimsuit mentioned.
“Walgreens created this metric partially as a result of it believed pharmacists who refused to fill controlled-substance prescriptions compromised Walgreens’s customer support.”
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