Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. agreed to pay $269.2 million to settle U.S. claims that the drugstore chain defrauded a federally funded health care program over insulin drugs and a consumer-discount initiative.
The two settlements, announced Tuesday, cover allegations over improper billing. In the first one, the company agreed to pay $209.2 million to resolve claims it billed Medicare, Medicaid and other programs for hundreds of thousands of insulin pens it distributed to people who didn’t need them. In the second, Walgreens said it would pay $60 million for overbilling Medicaid by not disclosing lower drug prices it offered in a discount program.
The first settlement requires Walgreens to pay about $168 million to the United States and about $41.2 million to state governments. In the second, about $32 million will go to the federal government and $28 million will go to the states.