SAN DIEGO–Consumer Protection Unit, working with the Riverside and Alameda District Attorneys’ Office and the State Board of Pharmacy, has obtained a $502,200 settlement in a consumer protection lawsuit brought against the owners of the Walgreens pharmacy chain in California.
The civil complaint, filed in San Diego Superior Court under California’s unfair competition laws, alleges that Walgreens pharmacists throughout the state frequently failed to comply fully with the state Board of Pharmacy’s rules requiring personal pharmacist consultations when prescription drug customers receive new prescriptions or new dosages of existing prescriptions.
“Pharmacist consultations prevent drug errors and ensure that patients have the right prescription for their condition,” District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said. “Without these checks and balances, dire consequences could result.”
Walgreen is an Illinois corporation headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois, that owns and operates the 620 Walgreens-branded pharmacies in California.
In 2011, the California State Board of Pharmacy brought to the three District Attorneys’ Offices the problem of health risks to California pharmacy customers when pharmacists fail to properly provide needed personal consultation to prescription drug customers. Uninformed or improper use of prescription drugs harms an estimated 150,000 Californians each year and contributes to an estimated $1.7 billion in economic losses throughout the state.
Regulations enforced by the California State Board of Pharmacy require that a pharmacist must provide personal consultation to a patient receiving a prescription drug not previously dispensed to that patient, or a prescription drug in a different dosage, form, or strength, or on the patient’s request.
Working with the Board of Pharmacy, the three District Attorneys’ Offices conducted an undercover investigation of the consultation practices of a number of the major pharmacy chains in California. Today’s enforcement action is the third of several such actions anticipated in this statewide project, and follows our December 2013 judgment against CVS pharmacies (injunction and $658,500 in monetary relief) and our June 2014 judgment against Rite Aid (injunction and $498,250 in monetary relief).
With regard to the Walgreens chain, the Board provided the District Attorneys with copies of 21 administrative citations issued to Walgreens by the Board of Pharmacy between 2010 and 2014 showing ongoing violations of the pharmacists’ consultation requirement. Subsequently, in 28 undercover purchases at Walgreens stores conducted by the District Attorneys in late 2013 in San Diego, Riverside, and Alameda counties, district attorney investigators found a significant pattern of failures to provide the required consultations and/or failures to offer patient consultations by proper personnel.
Under the terms of the judgment, which will be entered without admission of liability, Walgreen Co. will be subject to an injunction requiring full compliance with California’s standards for proper patient consultations, and must fully implement an internal compliance program. In the stipulated final judgment, the Walgreens entities have also agreed to pay $502,200, including agency investigative costs of $79,200 and civil penalties of $423,000. (San Diego DA will receive one-third, or $141,000, of those civil penalties and $18,600 of the costs.) Walgreens and its counsel worked cooperatively with the prosecutors to resolve this case and to implement new consultation compliance procedures.
The stipulated final judgment in this case was signed by Judge Lisa Schall and finalized by the court last Friday.
