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Walmart is paying $50 million to settle Justice Department allegations that its pharmacies knowingly filled thousands of invalid opioid prescriptions written by doctors the company’s own pharmacists had flagged as pill mills.
Getting into it: The DOJ and DEA announced the settlement late Friday, resolving a case the government filed Dec. 22, 2020, in federal court in Delaware alleging Walmart had been violating the Controlled Substances Act since June 2013. The core allegation is that Walmart’s pharmacists were sounding the alarm and getting ignored. They flagged problem prescribers to corporate compliance through thousands of “refusal-to-fill” forms, but the compliance team had other priorities.
“As one director on the compliance team acknowledged in an email, rather than analyzing the refusal-to-fill reports, the compliance team viewed ‘[d]riving sales and patient awareness,’ as ‘a far better use of our Market Directors and Market manger’s time,'” the Justice Department said.
Court papers said that over roughly four years, while shipping an estimated 37.5 million controlled-substance orders to its pharmacies, Walmart reported only 204 suspicious orders to the DEA. Pharmacists in Florida warned corporate about a doctor they called “shady,” describing patients who slurred their words and looked like they were abusing narcotics. Walmart filled more than 3,500 controlled-substance prescriptions for him.
Beyond the money, Walmart signed a memorandum of agreement with the DEA requiring it to stand up a phone line where staff and customers can flag illegal dispensing, monitor for suspicious patterns across its pharmacies, and build a system for vetting prescribers it suspects of writing bad scripts.
In a statement, DEA Assistant Administrator Cheri Oz said, “This $50 million settlement makes clear that pharmacies have a responsibility to identify and prevent the unlawful dispensing of controlled substances. Filling illegitimate opioid prescriptions puts patients and communities at risk and undermines the safeguards designed to prevent the diversion and misuse of potentially addictive medications.”
Walmart admitted no liability and told regulators the amount was “immaterial.” The company added, “We are pleased to resolve this matter and will continue supporting the exceptional work our pharmacists do every day to provide outstanding patient care.”
