Kentucky joins suit alleging Omnicare promoted unapproved drug, creating $6M in illegal Medicaid billings

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (March 17, 2015) — For the third time, the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office is alleging that Cincinnati-based institutional pharmacist Omnicare Inc. has engaged in a kickback payments scheme, the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting posted on its website today.

The KCIR article says Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway had papers filed in a federal court in Virginia to join a multistage federal fraud suit against Omnicare, a Fortune 500 company formerly based in Northern Kentucky.

“The company paid $98 million in 2009 to settle claims it took kickbacks from drug makers Johnson & Johnson and IVA,” KCIR reports. “It paid $8.2 million in 2014 to settle claims it paid kickbacks to nursing homes in return for their pharmacy business.”

The current fraud suit alleges Omnicare billed the state’s Medicaid program almost $6 million improperly over nine years for an anti-seizure drug that was given to nursing home patients for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Allegations in federal court are that Omnicare received “millions of dollars” in kickbacks from Abbott Laboratories to promote use of Depakote for dementia patients who were agitated or aggressive, a use for which it is illegal to bill state Medicaid programs.

Read the entire KCIR report here.