The U.S. Department of Justice is intervening in the prosecution of the case against the retail pharmacy for violations of the False Claims Act and the Controlled Substances Act.

Today, the nationally recognized law firm of Baron & Budd announced the U.S. Department of Justice has decided to intervene and take primary responsibility litigating a whistleblower lawsuit filed against Rite Aid for violations of the False Claims Act and the Controlled Substances Act. The whistleblowers in this case are former Rite Aid pharmacy employees represented by Baron & Budd.

The lawsuit alleges the company knowingly dispensed controlled substances outside the usual course of the professional practice of pharmacy and without a legitimate medical purpose and billed government healthcare programs for the fraudulently dispensed prescriptions.

The whistleblowers allege that “Rite Aid formally and informally incentivized and pressured its pharmacists to fill all prescriptions presented at its pharmacies – regardless of validity – resulting in prescriptions that were clearly not medically necessary being filled and billed to Government Programs, the public health and public fisc be damned.” The lawsuit alleges that taxpayer-funded health care programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare, only cover the costs of valid prescriptions issued for legitimate medical purposes, but these programs have paid out billions of dollars for medically unnecessary opioid prescriptions filled by Rite Aid pharmacies.

The suit also alleges that, as an operator of a large network of retail pharmacies, Rite Aid had the capability, data, and information to help inform safe and responsible opioid dispensing practices, but the company chose the bottom line over the safety of the communities in which it operates. The suit alleges that Rite Aid consistently disregarded its duties to provide adequate staffing, resources, and information to its pharmacists and did not properly identify, investigate, and resolve red flag prescriptions before dispensing. Instead, the suit alleges that Rite Aid routinely chose profits over people, and created an environment where pharmacists were expected to dispense any and all prescriptions to fuel Rite Aid’s business interests.

“Because of the courage of whistleblowers, like our clients, the curtain has been pulled back exposing the operations of major retail pharmacies, like Rite Aid, and we are getting a close look at the tragic consequences of corporate greed,” said Baron & Budd Shareholder Scott Simmer. “The opioid epidemic is a national public health emergency that has impacted nearly all Americans in some way. Rite Aid and other pharmacies have an obligation to operate responsibly while dispensing addictive opioid medications instead of exacerbating the crisis.”

With more than 30 years of experience in Qui Tam cases, the attorneys on Baron & Budd’s whistleblower representation team have represented numerous clients in government fraud cases returning over $6.0 billion to federal and state agencies, with whistleblower recovery shares as high as 49%.

About Baron & Budd, P.C.

Baron & Budd, P.C. is among the largest and most accomplished plaintiffs’ law firms in the country. With more than 45 years of experience, Baron & Budd has the expertise and resources to handle complex litigation throughout the United States. As a law firm that takes pride in remaining at the forefront of litigation, Baron & Budd has spearheaded many significant cases for hundreds of entities and thousands of individuals. Since the firm was founded in 1977, Baron & Budd has achieved substantial national acclaim for its work on cutting-edge litigation, trying hundreds of cases to verdict and settling tens of thousands of cases in areas of litigation as diverse and significant as dangerous and highly addictive pharmaceuticals, defective medical devices, asbestos and mesothelioma, California wildfires and environmental contamination, fraudulent banking practices, e-cigarettes, motor vehicles, federal and state whistleblower cases, and other consumer fraud issues.

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