Walmart to pay $50 million over illegal opioid prescriptions

The Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration announced a $50 million settlement with Walmart to resolve allegations that Walmart pharmacies illegally filled thousands of invalid prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances, according to a DOJ statement. The government's complaint was filed on December 22, 2020, and amended in 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware. The allegations cover invalid prescriptions filled since June 26, 2013.

According to the DOJ's statement, the government alleged that Walmart's compliance team members knew certain prescribers were operating as "pill mills" but filled invalid prescriptions written by those prescribers anyway. Members of Walmart's compliance team received thousands of "refusal-to-fill" forms from Walmart's own pharmacists reporting suspicious prescriber conduct, per the DOJ. One email from a director on Walmart's compliance team stated that "[d]riving sales and patient awareness" was "a far better use of our Market Directors and Market manager's time" than analyzing refusal-to-fill reports, according to the DOJ statement.

Walmart pharmacists allegedly filled prescriptions they knew were invalid because they were written by known "pill mill" prescribers or had red flags such as dangerous combinations of opioids, "cocktails" of opioids and non-opioids, excessively repeated fills of high-dosages of often-abused opioids, or repeated requests for early fills of often-abused controlled substances, the DOJ alleged.

Under a memorandum of agreement with the DEA, Walmart must establish a hotline for employees and patients to report suspected illegal dispensing of controlled substances. The company must also proactively monitor the dispensing patterns of its pharmacies to identify and address potentially illegal dispensing and establish a process to evaluate prescribers suspected of illegal prescribing, per the DOJ statement.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward stated: "Today's settlement proves this Department is committed to putting Americans' flourishing first." DEA Assistant Administrator Cheri Oz stated: "This $50 million settlement makes clear that pharmacies have a responsibility to identify and prevent the unlawful dispensing of controlled substances." The case was represented by attorneys from the Justice Department's Civil Division Enforcement and Affirmative Litigation Branch and the U.S. Attorneys' Offices for the District of Delaware, Eastern District of North Carolina, Middle District of Florida, and Eastern District of New York.

The DOJ statement notes that "the claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only; there has been no determination of liability," meaning Walmart does not admit wrongdoing.