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December 19, 2003 at 07:00 PM
NU Online News Service, Dec. 19, 2003, 5:03 p.m. EST – Medco Health Solutions Inc., Franklin Lakes, N.J., has responded in court to a complaint filed against it by the U.S. attorney’s office in Philadelphia.[@@]
The original complaint accused the pharmacy benefit manager of providing illegally bad service to members of Medicare plans and members of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
An amended complaint filed 10 days ago repeats the earlier allegations and adds allegations that accuse Medco of using an $87.4 million kickback to win a PBM contract from a health insurer in 2001.
The government has not named the health insurer, but Oxford Health Plans Inc., Trumbull, Conn., has acknowledged that it is the insurer.
Oxford reported in 2001 that it had picked Medco to be its PBM and that Medco had agreed to pay it a total of $87.4 million over 5 years to cover transition costs and the cost of providing detailed information about Oxford plan members.
Medco has reacted to the government’s amended complaint by filing a motion that asks U.S. District Judge Clarence Newcomer to dismiss the complaint.
“We believe that each of the allegations is false, overstated, or pertains to unauthorized instances over several years that were identified and corrected — and in no case are we aware of any situation that compromised our high level of patient care,” Medco General Counsel David Machlowitz says in a statement.
