Omnicare Pays Nearly $100 Million to Resolve Medicaid Fraud Charges: Second Omnicare Settlement With Chicago Whistleblower P...(ments. Other Medicaid fraud and kickbac...),Health

Other Medicaid fraud and kickback charges settled today included: (1) claims that Omnicare paid $50 million to secure long-term contracts with certain nursing home chains; (2) claims that Omnicare had accepted $8 million in payments for promoting drugs from Ivax Pharmaceuticals Inc., a generic drug manufacturer; and (3) claims that Omnicare had provided consultant pharmacist services to nursing homes below fair market value in order to secure contracts from the nursing homes.
   
The settlement agreement and other court documents can be found on the reference website www.PharmacyFraudSettlement.com.

Today's settlement resulted from "qui tam" suits filed under the False Claims Act. The False Claims Act allows private citizens with knowledge of fraud, known as "relators," to help the government recover ill-gotten gains. False Claims Acts allow the government to collect up to three times the amount defrauded, in addition to civil penalties. Behn noted that qui tam relators can receive between 15 and 30 percent of the government's recovery.

Today's settlement was achieved through the efforts of Senior Trial Attorney Laurie A. Oberembt of the U.S. Department of Justice, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregg Shapiro of Massachusetts, as well as a team from the National Association of Medicaid Fraud Units including Assistant Attorney General Keesha Mitchell of Ohio, Bureau Chief Patrick Keenan of the Illinois Attorney General's Office Medicaid Fraud Bureau, Assistant Attorney General Robert Patten of Massachusetts, and Assistant Attorney General Susan Aranella of Texas.

The Omnicare settlement is yet another successful whistleblower action handled by Behn & Wyetzner, Chartered for qui tam relators in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Earlier this year,
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