Walgreens to pay $106.8M over claims it billed government for prescriptions never dispensed

Walgreens Boots Alliance has agreed to pay a $106.8 million fine to settle allegations the pharmacy chain billed federal health care programs for prescriptions that were never filled.

The Department of Justice announced Friday an agreement with Walgreens had been reached to resolve the government’s claims that the company violated the False Claims Act and state statutes.

The government alleges that, between 2009 and 2020, Walgreens sent false claims for payment to Medicare, Medicaid and other federal health care programs for prescriptions that were processed at its pharmacies but that were never picked up by the patients.

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Instead of withdrawing the claims for the abandoned drugs, Walgreens restocked and resold them to other customers, receiving payment twice for the prescriptions. According to the government, the pharmacy chain collected tens of millions in taxpayer dollars over the 11-year period for medicine that never made it to its intended health care beneficiaries.

“This settlement marks another major achievement in our ongoing commitment to combat health care fraud,” U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg for the Middle District of Florida said in a statement announcing the agreement. “It is essential to hold pharmacies accountable when they knowingly fail to abide by the rules and requirements of our national health care programs.”

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As part of the agreement, Walgreens did not admit liability. 

“Due to a software error, we inadvertently billed some government health care programs for a relatively small number of prescriptions our patients submitted but never picked up,” a Walgreens spokesperson said in a statement when reached by FOX Business for comment. 

“We corrected the error, reported the issue to the government and voluntarily refunded all overpayments. We appreciate the government acknowledged our compliance efforts as part of resolving this matter.”

The DOJ said that as part of the resolution, Walgreens did receive credit for taking a number of actions to disclose, cooperate and fix the issues that led to the alleged False Claims Act violations.

The government said Walgreens has enhanced its electronic pharmacy management system to prevent the problems from happening again and self-reported some issues.

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Walgreens previously refunded the government more than $66 million in settlement claims, the government said, and the company will receive credit for that amount.