A lawsuit filed last week accuses Johnson & Johnson of conspiring with pharmaceutical consultant Omnicare in an effort to push J&J drugs on nursing home residents, and violating federal Medicaid laws in the process.
As a result of the scheme, "residents were overcharged for their medications, had additional medications administered and were unlawfully switched to Johnson & Johnson drugs," all in the name of increasing revenue, according to the lawsuit.
According to the suit, the companies also came up with a way to get around Medicaid's "best price law," a federal statute intended to ensure that Medicaid pays as little as possible for prescription drugs. Under the law, once the discounts and rebates exceeded a certain level, the companies would have been required to pass them along to Medicaid.
