Miami, Florida – Habana Hospital Pharmacy, Inc., Longevity Drugs, LLC, and Forest Hill Pharmacy, LLC, all Florida-based pharmacies, have agreed to pay $830,707.19 to resolve allegations they fraudulently used collaborative pharmacy practice agreements to bill federal health care programs for unlawfully prescribed medications.
The United States previously alleged that five Florida-based pharmacies, including Habana Hospital Pharmacy, Inc., Longevity Drugs, LLC, Forest Hills Pharmacy, LLC, APB&J Holdings Corporation, and Tropic Pharmacy Holdings, Inc., violated the False Claims Act through the fraudulent use of collaborative pharmacy practice agreements. Representatives of the five pharmacies signed the settlement agreement.
A collaborative pharmacy practice agreement is a written agreement between a physician and pharmacist that allows the pharmacist to provide specific patient care services for chronic health conditions to the physician’s patients. Services provided by the pharmacist are outlined in the written agreement and must be in accordance with Florida law.
The United States previously alleged that the settling pharmacies used unlawful collaborative practice agreements to delegate prescribing authority from physicians to pharmacists, resulting in unlawful prescriptions, and used the same collaborative practice agreements to write and fill prescriptions without any physician involvement. It was alleged that the fraudulent scheme resulted in the submission of...
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