Pharmacy Firm Accused Of Fake Opioid Scripts Settles With DOJ

GWINNETT COUNTY, GA — A company that provides pharmacy services to long-term care facilities has agreed to pay $2.75 million to resolve whistleblower allegations that it dispensed opioids without valid prescriptions, then billed Medicare for it.

AlixaRx LLC, a Texas-based firm that operated a Norcross hub until 2020, paid the federal settlement for violations that were alleged to have happened from 2014 to 2017, according to a statement Tuesday from the Justice Department.

The government investigation and subsequent settlement follows a lawsuit filed by a former pharmacist at AlixaRx’s Norcross facility.

According to the Justice Department’s statement, “AlixaRx routinely abused the emergency prescription provisions” of federal law by “obtaining verbal ‘emergency’ refills from prescribers, in the absence of any true emergency.”

Federal law limits opioid refills only to genuine emergencies, with verbal refills to be confirmed in writing within seven days. Instead, according to the Justice Department’s statement, AlixaRx “routinely failed” to follow up within a week, instead trying to cover its tracks with backdated prescriptions written up to a year later.

The payment also resolved allegations that AlixaRx filed false claims to Medicare for the invalid emergency prescriptions. In some cases, according to the statement, AlixaRx double-billed Medicare, filing claims for prescriptions that had already been reimbursed directly to the long-term care facilities.

“This resolution sends a message that there are rules to be followed when dispensing controlled substances,” said Chris Hacker, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “The FBI and our law enforcement partners make it a priority to protect patients from being supplied drugs without valid prescriptions.”

A separate statement Tuesday from AlixaRx announced that the company contested the allegations and had “not agreed to liability, but instead made a business decision to settle these matters.” The statement also said that AlixaRx’s Norcross pharmacy was “closed for unrelated business reasons.”

Read statements from the U.S. Department of Justice and AlixaRx.