CAMDEN — An East Camden drugstore has agreed to pay $625,000 to settle a dispute over its claims for payments from federal health care programs.
Authorities contended that San Antonio Pharmacy improperly billed the Medicare Part D and New Jersey Medicaid programs for prescriptions that were not dispensed.
But the drugstore's lawyer characterized the dispute as "a recordkeeping matter and not a fraud matter."
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Attorney Angelo Cifaldi of Woodbridge said the Federal Street store settled "to prevent what would have been very costly litigation against a community pharmacy with limited resources."
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for New Jersey, the drugstore "knowingly" billed the health care programs "for medications that it never dispensed" between Jan. 1, 2019, and Jan. 24, 2022.
It said inventory records showed the drugstore did not buy enough medications from wholesalers to fill all of the prescriptions billed to the programs.
Those practices violated the federal false claims act, the federal prosecutor's office claimed.
But it added: "The claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only, and there has been no determination of liability.
Cifaldi said the drugstore, also known as Farmacia San Antonio, had failed to update records with new product codes for generic drugs — a requirement of the programs — each time it changed suppliers or packaging.
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