11/15/06

Drug Companies Overcharging

And they wonder why we don't like or trust these drug corporations?
New Haven Register - Drug company to pay state $2.8M for overcharging:
"Omnicare Inc., one of the nation’s largest providers of pharmaceuticals for the elderly, will pay Connecticut $2.8 million as part of a national settlement of charges the company overcharged for Medicaid drugs.

...snip...

State investigations found Omnicare officials would switch less expensive prescribed tablets for a more costly capsules of the same drug, or reverse the process if the tablet form was more expensive for a particular prescription.

The company also would change prescribed doses to increase profits, according to investigators. For example, Omnicare employees would replace a prescription for a singe 15 milligram pill to twice as many 7.5 milligram pills, which would be more expensive.

Blumenthal said the overcharging was 'certainly the result of deliberate and purposeful switching.'

According to Blumenthal, the switching by Omnicare resulted in about $1.4 million in overcharges for Connecticut’s Medicaid program from 2000-05."


It's bad enough that that Canadians can buy the same prescription drugs cheaper than we can... But they want to double up on overcharging us now?

I am seriously surprised that they won't be doing jail time for this fraud against Connecticut's senior citizens.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My issue is Zyprexa which is only FDA approved for schizophrenia (.5-1% of pop) and some bipolar (2% pop) and then an even smaller percentage of theses two groups.
So how does Zyprexa get to be the 7th largest drug sale in the world?

Eli Lilly is in deep trouble for using their drug reps to 'encourage' doctors to write zyprexa for non-FDA approved 'off label' uses.

The drug causes increased diabetes risk,and medicare picks up all the expensive fallout.There are now 7 states (and counting) going after Lilly for fraud and restitution.

--
Daniel Haszard

Connecticut Man1 said...

I hadn't read about thisEli Lilly news. They must have buried this news in a business section (If they covered it at all?)

Thank you for the comment. Worth looking into.