Attorney General Tim Griffin sues pharmacy benefit managers for alleged role in Arkansas opioid epidemic
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has filed a lawsuit against two pharmacy benefit managers for their "roles as a cause of the opioid epidemic in Arkansas," according to a news release.
The lawsuit filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court on Monday, Optum, Inc., and Express Scripts, Inc., and their subsidiaries are accused of:
- Fueling the state's opioid epidemic by increasing opioid utilization by placing opioids on lower tiers of their formularies, controlling what less addictive pain treatments were available to patients, and falsely representing that their formularies were designed to be cost-effective and achieve favorable health outcomes but instead were designed to maximize profits
- Operating online retail pharmacies that dispensed billions of morphine milligram equivalents of opioids while failing to follow state and federal laws on controlled substances
- Being aware of the opioid epidemic in Arkansas and failed to take any action
In the release, Griffin asked that the PBMs be held accountable for "creating a public nuisance through their actions, being negligent in their actions, and unjustly enriching themselves."
Griffin said Arkansas had the second-highest opioid prescription rate in the country in 2016, with 114.6 opioids being dispersed for every 100 residents.
"Pill by pill and dollar by dollar, PBMs enabled the opioid epidemic in Arkansas. Today, we begin the process of holding them accountable for their roles in a crisis that has ravaged our state—a crisis they helped cause, contributed to, and furthered.
The PBMs benefited financially from the opioid crisis in Arkansas by negotiating favorable deals with opioid manufacturers while at the same time forgetting the interests of Arkansans who received prescriptions. Instead of protecting consumers by leveraging data to curb excessive prescriptions, PBMs focused on the financial incentives of manufacturer rebates to drive profits at the expense of people," Griffin said in a statement.
Click here to read a copy of the full lawsuit.
from KARK https://ift.tt/eG7Hwxn
0 Response to "Attorney General Tim Griffin sues pharmacy benefit managers for alleged role in Arkansas opioid epidemic"
Post a Comment