The largest nursing home pharmacy in the United States of America, based on the number of beds served, Omnicare, has agreed to pay $28.1 million as a means of settling charges of violating the FCA and Anti-kickback statute alleged against it.
It was alleged that Omnicare requested and accepted received kickbacks from Abbott Laboratories. In return, the nursing home pharmacy went on to promote the prescription and utilization of an epilepsy drug known as ‘Depakote’, which is manufactured by the drugmaker.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, Omnicare had allegedly hid the kickbacks and went on to describe them as ‘educational funding’ and ‘grants’ received from Abbott. However, the fact of the matter is that these were actually payments that were transacted for the sole purpose of increasing the prescriptions of Depakote, which is a clear violation of the False Claims Act.
For the record, Depakote is prescribed to dementia patients as a means of controlling behavioral disturbances. However, the medicine has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for this particular purpose.
Back in 2015, more than $10 billion was paid by CVS Health Corp., which now owns the pharmacy company, for Omnicare. However, it was later acknowledged by the Department of Justice that the alleged misconduct was brought to a halt by CVS. Abbott also entered its own settlement and resolved its liability under the False Claims Act by paying $1.5 billion back in May 2012 with Federal and state officials over a kickback scheme known as ‘Re*View’.
In the words of Special Agent in Charge Nicholas DiGiulio of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, “It is disturbing that any health care corporation would pay kickbacks that corrupt the professional medical decision-making process in order to pad their profits. These practices are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
This particular settlement brings us to the final resolution of two separate whistleblower lawsuits from former employees of Abbott, both of whom brought the alleged kickback scheme to light. From the settlement, the whistleblowers are going to receive $3 million.
