The Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Rite Aid on Monday for knowingly filling dangerous and illegal prescriptions.
In the lawsuit, the government alleges that Rite Aid violated the Controlled Substances Act by filling opioid prescriptions with obvious red flags and repeatedly deleting messages about suspicious prescriptions.
“These practices opened the floodgates for millions of opioid pills and other controlled substances to flow illegally out of Rite Aid’s stores,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said.
Some Rite Aid pharmacists warned of the dangers of the company’s prescription practices, the lawsuit mentions one message titled “cash only pill mill???” Many of those internal messages were deleted however in an attempt to cover their tracks, the government alleges.
According to the lawsuit, from 2014 to 2019, Rite Aid filled thousands of suspicious opioid prescriptions that included “excessive” amounts of addictive drugs.
The Justice Department says that these prescriptions lacked any medical purpose and “were not for a medically accepted indication, or were not issued in the usual course of professional practice.”
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The government is also accusing the pharmacy of violating the False Claims Act by submitting false prescription claims to Medicare and Medicaid.
The lawsuit is another step in the federal government’s effort to punish pharmaceutical companies for their role in the opioid crisis, which contributed to thousands of overdose deaths in the U.S. over the past two decades.
Rite Aid is one of the largest pharmacy chains in the country with over 2,000 stores in 17 states.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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