Walmart has agreed to a $50 million settlement with the Justice Department over allegations that its pharmacies improperly filled hundreds of thousands of prescriptions for controlled substances, conduct that federal authorities say contributed to the nation’s opioid epidemic.
The agreement brings an end to a federal lawsuit dating back to 2020, in which the government alleged that Walmart pharmacies failed to alert the Drug Enforcement Administration to suspicious prescription activity.
Federal prosecutors accused Walmart’s compliance operation of allowing pharmacies to continue filling invalid prescriptions from medical providers allegedly operating as “pill mills,” despite warnings and concerns raised by the company’s own pharmacists.
“Over an approximately four-year period, a time during which Walmart shipped an estimated 37.5 million controlled-substance orders to its pharmacies, it reported only 204 suspicious orders to D.E.A. — in other words, almost none,” according to court documents.
Beyond the $50 million payment, the settlement requires Walmart to implement additional measures aimed at identifying potentially unlawful distribution of controlled substances. The retailer will establish a hotline allowing employees and patients to report suspected improper dispensing, increase monitoring of dispensing patterns at its pharmacies, and create a process for reviewing doctors suspected of improperly prescribing controlled substances.
“This $50 million settlement makes clear that pharmacies have a responsibility to identify and prevent the unlawful dispensing of controlled substances,” DEA assistant administrator Cheri Oz said in a statement. “Filling illegitimate opioid prescriptions puts patients and communities at risk and undermines the safeguards designed to prevent the diversion and misuse of potentially addictive medications.”
Oz said the agreement is intended both to resolve allegations involving Walmart’s previous practices and to impose safeguards aimed at preventing similar problems in the future.
Oz added, “This settlement addresses past conduct while establishing clear compliance obligations designed to strengthen safeguards and help prevent these failures from happening again.”
The agreement marks the latest major opioid-related legal settlement involving Walmart, the world’s largest retail chain.
In 2022, Walmart agreed to pay $1.3 billion to resolve thousands of lawsuits filed by states accusing the company’s pharmacies of helping fuel the opioid epidemic through their handling of prescriptions.
Walmart is one of several major pharmacy chains and retailers to reach large settlements over opioid prescriptions. Kroger, for example, agreed in 2023 to pay $1.2 billion to state and local governments to settle claims concerning its prescription practices.
The opioid epidemic has taken a massive toll in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 806,000 people died from overdoses involving prescription drugs between 1999 and 2023.
{Matzav.com}
