Lawsuit is a Pill

Posted on Feb 25, 2025 by

My pharmacy is great. If I have a prescription that’s about to run out, they’ll reach out to my doctor for a refill. Then, they let me know when the prescription is ready to pick up.

Apparently, some pharmacies make it too easy to refill prescriptions, particularly for opioids.

At the end of 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island against CVS. The suit accuses the pharmacy chain of filling illegal opioid prescriptions and billing federal health insurance programs, contributing to a nationwide epidemic of opioid addiction and overdose.

The complaint alleges that from October of 2013 to the present, CVS violated the federal Controlled Substances Act by filling prescriptions for dangerous quantities of opioids and dangerous combinations of drugs. In addition, the country’s largest pharmacy chain, having with more than 9,000 locations nationwide, sought reimbursement from federal healthcare programs for these unlawful prescriptions.

The Justice Department claims that company-mandated performance metrics led to CVS regularly filling prescriptions from doctors running so-called pill mills. The chain purportedly had inadequate staffing and pushed its pharmacists to fill prescriptions as quickly as possible without investigating whether they were legitimate and ignored warnings from its own employees.

The suit asserts that CVS continued to fill hundreds of prescriptions for one Alabama doctor even after multiple internal notes warned in 2015 that he was under investigation and was later arrested in 2016. It also filled thousands of prescriptions for a Pennsylvania doctor despite internal warnings and online patient reviews saying he “writes scripts without seeing the patient” and is “a pill pusher, and a drunk.”

The complaint described 10 individual patients who died, allegedly after filling illegal prescriptions for opioids and other drugs at CVS.

In 2022, multiple pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies and distributors reached an agreement to settle thousands of similar claims filed by state, local, and indigenous tribal governments totaling about $46 billion. As part of this settlement, CVS agreed to pay close to $5 billion over 10 years, while not admitting any wrongdoing.

In January, the DOJ filed a similar lawsuit against Walgreens in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The suit alleges Walgreens, which has over 8,000 locations nationwide, knowingly filled millions of unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances from approximately August of 2012 to the present.

“Our complaint alleges that Walgreens pharmacists filled millions of controlled substance prescriptions with clear red flags that indicated the prescriptions were highly likely to be unlawful, and that Walgreens systematically pressured its pharmacists to fill prescriptions, including controlled substance prescriptions, without taking the time needed to confirm their validity,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division said in a statement.

The DOJ says like CVS, Walgreens pharmacists were pressured to fill prescriptions quickly without taking the time needed to confirm each prescription’s validity. They also allege Walgreens deprived pharmacists of crucial information and prevented them from warning one another about certain prescribers.

“We have cooperated with the DOJ’s investigation for more than four years, and we strongly disagree with the allegations and false narrative within this complaint,” CVS said in a statement about its lawsuit. Likewise, Walgreens’ website says, “We look forward to the opportunity to defend the professionalism and integrity of our pharmacists” who filled “legitimate prescriptions for FDA-approved medications written by DEA-licensed prescribers in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations.”

Once I asked my pharmacist to give me an herbal remedy instead of a pill, but he said he had no thyme.



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Reg P. Wydeven

Elder Law and Estate Planning Attorney at McCarty Law LLP
Hoping to follow in his father’s footsteps from a young age, Reg’s practice primarily consists of advising individuals on estate planning, estate settlement and elder law matters. As Reg represents clients in matters like guardianship proceedings and long-term care admissions, he feels grateful to be able to offer families thorough legal help in their time of need.
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