US sues Rite Aid, saying it ignored ‘obvious red flags’ in opioid prescriptions

The Justice Department has accused Rite Aid of writing hundreds of thousands of illegal prescriptions over the years.

The U.S. government is suing Rite Aid, alleging the pharmacy chain missed “obvious red flags” and illegally filled hundreds of thousands of prescriptions for controlled substances, including opioids.

The DOJ complaint states that from 2014 to 2019, Rite Aid pharmacists knowingly wrote prescriptions that were “medically unnecessary,” misused, or “not written as part of normal professional practice.”

The complaint says pharmacists ignored red flags such as the “three groups” of opioids, benzodiazepines and muscle relaxants, as well as “early fulfillment” of prescriptions that should not have run out yet. They allegedly wrote prescriptions for very high doses or amounts of opioids or from prescribers already labeled as “illegal prescribers”.

Rite Aid was also accused of deliberately removing internal software notes left by pharmacists, such as “cash only pill factory???” and “writing overdose(s) of oxycodone”. The complaint alleges that a government relations analyst at Rite Aid told one such pharmacist to “always be very careful about what is in writing.”

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Representatives for Rite Aid declined to comment on the allegations as they are part of a “trial”. According to his website, he owns over 2,300 pharmacies in 17 states.

Along with the Controlled Substances Act, the government claims that Rite Aid violated the federal False Claims Act by filing “false or fraudulent claims” for reimbursement with federal health care programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

“The Department of Justice is using every tool at our disposal to combat the opioid epidemic that is killing Americans and devastating communities across the country,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a press release. “This includes holding corporations like Rite Aid accountable for knowingly executing illegal prescriptions for controlled substances.”

Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta added that the company’s actions “opened the floodgates for the smuggling of millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances from Rite Aid stores.”

The US has joined a whistleblower lawsuit in the Northern District of Ohio, originally filed in 2019 by three former Rite Aid employees.

Opioids have been linked to over 500,000 deaths in the US over the past two decades, with the largest number of deaths occurring in recent years. The drugs responsible for most of the deaths have shifted from prescription painkillers to illegally manufactured fentanyl, which is often mixed with other street drugs.

In the 2010s, state and local governments filed thousands of lawsuits in an attempt to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable for the crisis. Some key drug manufacturers, distribution companies and other pharmacies have already agreed to the settlement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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