Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Health Tech Company Resolves Allegations It Helped Set Up System To Encourage Opioid Prescriptions
The Associated Press: US Attorney Announces $145M Settlement In Opioid Case
A San Francisco-based health information technology company will pay $145 million to resolve criminal and civil charges that it helped set up an electronic health records system that encouraged physicians to prescribe opioids to patients who might not need them, federal prosecutors in Vermont said Monday. Vermont U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan said the company Practice Fusion, Inc., took kickbacks from a major opioid company in exchange for using its software to influence physicians to prescribe opioid pain medication. (Ring, 1/27)
Modern Healthcare: Allscripts Subsidiary To Pay $145 Million To Resolve Opioid Kickback Allegations
The DOJ said the case marks the first criminal action taken against an EHR vendor. Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, which purchased Practice Fusion in 2018, said the settlement involves conduct from before the acquisition. Practice Fusion admitted to soliciting and receiving kickbacks of nearly $1 million from a "major opioid company" that the Justice Department didn't name in exchange for creating a clinical decision-support alert that would "cause doctors to prescribe more extended release opioids," according to the agency. (Cohen, 1/27)
In other news on the opioid crisis —
Stat: McKesson Reaches $175M Deal With Shareholders Over Lax Opioid Oversight
As pressure mounts on pharmaceutical wholesalers over their role in the opioid crisis, McKesson (MCK) agreed to pay $175 million to settle a lawsuit filed by investors who claimed the big distributor failed to properly oversee suspicious shipments of the addictive painkillers. Besides the payout, McKesson also agreed to take several steps to bolster corporate governance, including separating the roles of the chairman and chief executive officer, creating term limits for board members, reforming the board compliance committee, generating board reports concerning complaints about compliance issues, and toughening clawback policies for executives who fail to perform properly, according to the stipulation agreement. (Silverman, 1/27)
Knoxville News Sentinel: Blankenship Pharmacy Pushed Opioid For Drug-Addicted Pregnant Women
Buprenorphine — intended only for addicted pregnant women and nursing mothers — was quickly becoming a hot product on the opioid black market, and this Johnson City pharmacy wanted its cut of the profits, records show. In a city with a population of fewer than 65,000, Blankenship Pharmacy ordered so much buprenorphine — more than 300,000 doses in eight years — even one of the drugmakers was suspicious. “We can find no information demonstrating that this retail pharmacy is specializing in treating pregnant women or nursing mothers, nor can we find any relationship with any medical practice that appears to specialize in treating pregnant women or nursing mothers,” an investigator with Teva Pharmaceuticals wrote. “This pharmacy appears to have been the largest retail purchaser in the U.S.” (Satterfield, 1/26)
