CHICAGO — Walgreens has agreed to pay $50 million to the federal government and states to settle allegations that it illegally gave discounts to Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries to encourage them to fill their prescriptions at Walgreens.
The federal anti-kickback statute prohibits giving anything of value to people covered by Medicare, Medicaid or Tricare in an effort to gain their business. The government alleged that Walgreens enrolled hundreds of thousands of those consumers into its Prescription Savings Club, which gave members discounts on drugs and rebates on other Walgreens-branded products such as household, baby care and grocery items.
Walgreens, headquartered in suburban Chicago, knew it could not allow beneficiaries of government health insurance programs into the Prescription Savings Club, and it published materials saying they were ineligible, according to the government.
Yet Walgreens marketed the program to them and paid employees $1 to $5 for each customer enrolled without checking whether customers were covered by Medicare, Medicaid or TRICARE, the government alleged. Tricare is the government’s health insurance program for the military.
