The most important pharmacy chain in America is accused of “unlawfully meting out large portions of opioids and different managed substances to gas its personal income on the expense of public well being and security,” in response to a civil lawsuit filed by the Justice Division, which was unsealed Wednesday.
The DOJ lawsuit alleges that CVS has, for greater than a decade, knowingly stuffed sometimes-dubious prescriptions for managed substances that lacked a authentic medical function, or weren’t legitimate.
These prescriptions included “harmful and extreme portions of opioids” and “trinity cocktails” — a mix of “particularly harmful and abused mixture of medicine made up of an opioid, a benzodiazepine and a muscle relaxant,” the swimsuit acknowledged.
A CVS pharmacy in Miami, Oct. 1, 2024.
Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures
The swimsuit additionally accuses the corporate of filling “at the least hundreds of managed substance prescriptions” penned by “recognized ‘tablet mills.'”
In a press release to ABC Information, CVS spokesperson Amy Thibault referred to as the swimsuit “misguided” and mentioned firm officers “strongly disagree with the allegations and false narrative” described within the DOJ swimsuit and can “defend ourselves vigorously.”
DOJ’s lawsuit says CVS “contributed to the opioid disaster, a nationwide public well being emergency with devastating results in america.” The swimsuit went on to say: “These included illegitimate prescriptions for very excessive doses and extreme portions of potent opioids that fed dependence and habit, in addition to illegitimate prescriptions for harmful combos of opioids and different medication.”
The swimsuit accuses CVS of ignoring typically “egregious purple flags” about prescriptions “bearing the hallmarks of abuse and diversion.” The lawsuit factors to efficiency metrics and incentive compensation insurance policies that allegedly pressured pharmacists to “fill prescriptions as shortly as attainable, with out assessing their legitimacy” and company insurance policies that allegedly prioritized pace over security.
The swimsuit claims CVS refused to implement compliance measures really useful by its personal specialists to scale back the variety of invalid prescriptions with purple flags “primarily because of concern that they might sluggish the pace of prescription filling and improve labor prices,” in response to the swimsuit.
The federal government is searching for civil penalties, injunctive reduction and damages to handle what it referred to as CVS’ illegal practices and to forestall future violations.
In her assertion, Thibault, the CVS spokesperson, mentioned the corporate has been an business chief in preventing opioid misuse.
“Every of the prescriptions in query was for an FDA-approved opioid remedy prescribed by a practitioner who the federal government itself licensed, approved, and empowered to put in writing controlled-substance prescriptions,” Thibault’s assertion mentioned.
She mentioned the DOJ lawsuit “intensifies a severe dilemma for pharmacists, who’re concurrently second-guessed for meting out too many opioids, and too few.”
