DOJ Alleges Kickbacks Between Omnicare and Abbott Labs Involving Dementia Drug

  On December 22, the United States filed a civil False Claims Act complaint against Omnicare Inc. alleging that it solicited and received kickbacks from Abbott Laboratories in exchange for purchasing and recommending Depakote, a dementia drug for elderly patients.  Omnicare is the nation’s largest provider of pharmacy dispensing services to nursing homes, and also provides consulting services to the homes. According to the complaint, Omnicare “wielded enormous influence over the drugs administered to the residents of Omnicare-serviced nursing homes.” The U.S. alleges that “in exchange for Abbott’s kickbacks, Omnicare engaged in intensive efforts to convince nursing home physicians to prescribe Depakote, and its claims to federal healthcare programs for prescriptions of Depakote increased from less than $3 million in 1998 to over $92 million in 2008.” Background The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued regulations to ensure that nursing home residents are “free from unnecessary drugs,” including antipsychotic drugs used in excessive amounts, for excessive duration, without adequate monitoring, or in the presence of adverse consequences indicating that the dose should be reduced or discontinued. Nursing homes must ensure that the drugs are “necessary to treat a specific condition as diagnosed and documented in the clinical record” and that residents “receive gradual ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs