NEWS
INDUSTRY NEWS
02/07/05
"Judge Admonishes Medco On Case Documents" - 02/07/05
Article from the Wall Street Journal Online
A federal judge admonished Medco Health Solutions Inc. for violating his orders to turn over documents in the company's legal battle with the Justice Department.
Medco, one of the country's largest pharmacy-benefit managers, has been "dilatory" in its disclosure of certain documents that were supposed to be turned over and "any further violations of this court's orders may result in sanctions," wrote Judge Clarence C. Newcomer of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Medco, of Franklin Lakes, N.J., is one of the companies that provides the cards that patients present at their drugstores to fill prescriptions. Medco, which claims about 60 million members, also operates the largest mail-order pharmacy in the country.
The Justice Department sued Medco in September 2003, alleging that the company defrauded the government employees' pharmacy-benefits program by inappropriately canceling prescriptions, claiming it had called physicians to warn them of potential bad-drug interactions when it hadn't, changing prescriptions without a doctor's consent and shorting pill bottles.
If a judge or jury agrees with the Justice Department, Medco could technically be liable for an $11,000 fine on each of the millions of prescriptions Medco processed for government employees.
Among the documents that the judge admonished Medco for not turning over was Medco's electronic claims data. In his order, the judge said Medco has turned over documents on disks that have technical defects, and that the plaintiffs have complained about the defects to Medco. "Medco argues that it has not been made aware of any defects in electronic document production," the judge wrote. "Clearly, this is disingenuous."
Medco didn't provide a comment on the judge's order. In the past, Medco has said the government has scant evidence to support its allegations, and many Wall Street analysts and investors have shrugged off the case.
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