A settlement has been reached to resolve False Claims Acts allegations against McKesson Corporation who is accused of reporting inflated pricing information for a large number of prescription drugs, causing Medicaid to overpay for those drugs.
The government alleges that McKesson reported the inflated pricing data to First DataBank (FDB), a publisher of drug prices that are used by most state Medicaid programs to set payment rates for pharmaceuticals. The drug pricing data at issue relates to the “Average Wholesale Price” (AWP) benchmark used by Medicaid and other programs to set payment rates for pharmaceuticals. The settlement is based on the United States’ allegations that McKesson reported inflated mark-up percentages to FDB for a wide variety of brand name drugs, causing FDB to publish inflated AWPs for those drugs.