False Claims Act Insights - Bitter Pills: DOJ Targets Pharmacies for FCA Enforcement
Prescribing GLP-1 Medications: Be Aware of Legal Limitations
Understanding Pharmacy Benefit Managers: The PBM Landscape Explained
The DEA Is Knocking at Your Door . . . Are You Prepared? – Diagnosing Health Care
340B Drug Pricing Program Compliance
Podcast: Post-Dobbs Access to Reproductive Health Care and Abortion-Inducing Drugs - Diagnosing Health Care
Podcast: Impact of COVID-19 on Pharmacist Scope of Practice: Before and After the PREP Act - Diagnosing Health Care
Hooper, Kearney and Macklin on Cutting Edge Topics in the False Claims Act
Edible Bites Episode 3: Cannabis and Life Sciences Video Webinar Series
Health Care Continues to Drive False Claims Act Recoveries: Thought Leaders in Health Law Video Series
Drug Pricing Initiatives During the Trump Presidency
Bill on Bankruptcy: AMR Make-Whole Opinion Vulnerable on Appeal
In a landmark victory for justice and public health, Rabin Kammerer Johnson (RKJ) and Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley—are announcing a $300 million settlement in a landmark whistleblower qui tam action against...more
Walgreens to Pay $300 Million to Settle DOJ Claims Over Invalid Opioid Prescriptions - Walgreens Boots Alliance has agreed to pay more than $300 million to resolve allegations brought by the US Department of Justice (DOJ)...more
The False Claims Act (FCA) remains one of the government’s most powerful tools in combating healthcare fraud, with a growing focus on opioid-related cases and violations of the Anti-Kickback Statute....more
In past years we have discussed how opioid-related enforcement efforts have remained a top federal and state priority (here, here, and here). In 2024, opioid-related enforcement efforts continued across the entire opioid...more
The 2024 legislative session of the Connecticut General Assembly produced a number of new statutory provisions impacting the operations of hospitals, physician groups and other health care providers. To alert the health care...more
Prescription drug fraud has long been a focus for government regulators, but it has taken on new significance in the wake of America’s opioid crisis. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Health and Human...more
Kentucky AG Russell Coleman filed a lawsuit against the Kroger Company and affiliated entities alleging that it contributed to the opioid epidemic in the state in its role as a drug distributor and operator of retail...more
In 2020, over 142 million prescriptions for opioid medications were filled in the U.S. That same year, 16,416 people died from overdoses on prescription opioids—a 376% increase from 1999....more
Recent Filings Shed Light on DOJ’s View of Supreme Court’s Recent FCA Ruling - On June 1, 2023, the US Supreme Court explained that an assessment of a defendant’s subjective beliefs — rather than what an objectively...more
A Suffolk County, New York court held on November 16 that White’s Apothecary in East Hampton was not negligent when it filled a physician’s opioid and benzodiazepine prescriptions as ordered....more
Walmart has offered to pay $3.1 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits filed against the deep-pocketed retailing giant, accusing it of complicity through its nationwide pharmacy operations in the lethal opioid abuse and...more
A group of 16 AGs reached a settlement with Walmart Inc., pending approval by the full coalition of 43 states, to resolve allegations regarding the company’s role in contributing to the nationwide opioid crisis....more
While critics keep throwing up a false narrative about “ambulance chasing,” self-enriching lawyers, their labors and the civil legal system have proven yet again their effectiveness in wringing financial justice for those...more
Florida AG Ashley Moody has announced a settlement with Walmart Inc. to resolve without litigation allegations, including from a number of Florida municipalities, regarding the company’s role in contributing to the state’s...more
Even as the opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis worsens and breaks annual records for its resulting death toll, the reckoning for parties blamed for fostering the national nightmare is grinding forward. A federal judge...more
Causation, an issue courts often wrestle with when deciding insurance coverage issues, lands the starring role in our February Insurance Update. •A county experienced higher costs due to the opioid crisis. Does its...more
The regular folks who make up juries may give more heed than judges and justices do to the how and why of patients’ push for justice in the civil system, as has been shown in yet another bellwether decision involving major...more
While the pandemic put many things on hold, it did not do the same for the False Claims Act (FCA). To find out what is happening in FCA activity we spoke with Patrick Hooper, Jordan Kearney and Alicia Macklin, partners at the...more
Health workers with legal prescribing privileges have gotten newly revised federal guidelines — once again — making it easier for them to help those addicted to powerful opioid painkillers by prescribing buprenorphine,...more
The COVID-19 pandemic has created many new enforcement priorities for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). From selling ineffective personal protective equipment (PPE) to companies fraudulently seeking loan forgiveness under...more
The opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis has tarred yet another of the nation’s business titans: McKinsey, a globally renowned consulting firm, has discovered that providing corporate clients sketchy advice about addictive,...more
The Justice Department handed Walmart a huge slap in the face last year with the filing of a comprehensive civil case alleging that Walmart knowingly distributed large quantities of opioids in disregard of the law that fueled...more
The stain of the nation’s opioid abuse and drug overdose crisis has spread now to Bentonville, Ark., as federal prosecutors have sued Walmart, accusing the nation’s largest retailer of improperly allowing its pharmacists to...more
DOJ Announces Charges Against 345 Defendants in Historic Nationwide Health Care Fraud and Opioid Takedown - The DOJ announced a nationwide enforcement action charging 345 defendants across 51 federal districts with...more
The Sixth Circuit recently addressed whether a novel negotiation class could be certified to facilitate possible future settlement negotiations in multidistrict litigation (MDL)....more