The pharmacy provider agrees to pay US$124 million to resolve allegations of below-cost discounts.

On June 25, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had settled with Omnicare, Inc. in two matters alleging that kickbacks resulted from below-cost discounts offered to skilled nursing homes as an inducement to select Omnicare as their pharmacy provider.1 The cases, captioned United States ex rel. Gale v. Omnicare, and United States ex rel. Silver v. Omnicare, are both qui tam whistle blower cases that will be resolved by the US$124 million settlement.

These cases are just two of the many cases filed recently alleging such swapping schemes. But this settlement is by far the largest reached in a swapping case to date. Because Omnicare is one of the largest providers serving nursing homes, this settlement may motivate whistleblowers to file even more of these types of cases in the future.