WASHINGTON — Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. and Walgreen Co. (together, Walgreens) have agreed to pay $106.8 million to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by billing government health care programs for prescriptions that were never dispensed, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The settlement addresses claims that, between 2009 and 2020, Walgreens improperly submitted payment requests to Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs for prescriptions that were processed but never picked up by beneficiaries.
The government alleges that Walgreens restocked and resold the medications without reversing the original claim for payment, effectively receiving payment twice for the same prescription. This practice resulted in tens of millions of dollars being paid to Walgreens for medications that were never provided to patients.
In resolving the case, Walgreens received credit for cooperating with the investigation and taking steps to remedy the issue. This included making improvements to its electronic pharmacy management system to prevent similar issues in the future and voluntarily refunding $66.3 million related to the claims. Walgreens will receive credit for this amount as part of the settlement.
“Federal health care programs provide critical health care services to millions of Americans,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “We will hold accountable those who abuse these programs by knowingly billing for goods or services they did not provide.”
The settlement was reached with the participation of U.S. Attorneys across multiple districts, including New Mexico, Texas, and Florida, highlighting the federal government’s commitment to safeguarding public health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid from fraud.
In total, the federal government will recover $91.9 million, with an additional $14.9 million being returned to individual states through separate agreements to reimburse their share of Medicaid funding. This marks a significant achievement in ongoing efforts to combat healthcare fraud and ensure the integrity of taxpayer-funded health care programs.