A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Walgreens who is accused of offering illegal inducements to beneficiaries of government health care programs.
The whistleblower will receive $1,277,172 as the recovery of the federal share settlement of $7,298,124.
The whistleblower case was filed in September 2008. The United States alleged that Walgreens offered illegal inducements to beneficiaries of government health care programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), in the form of gift cards, gift checks and other similar promotions that are prohibited by law, to transfer their prescriptions to Walgreens pharmacies. The government investigation alleged that Walgreens had offered government health beneficiaries $25 gift cards when they transferred a prescription from another pharmacy to Walgreens. The company’s advertisements that promoted gift cards and gift checks for transferred prescriptions typically acknowledged that the offer was not valid with Medicaid, Medicare or any other government program. Nevertheless, the government alleged that Walgreens employees frequently ignored the stated exemptions on the face of the coupons and handed gift cards to customers who were beneficiaries of government health programs, in violation of federal law.
