From clinic closures to false claims settlements, here are four updates from retail giant Walgreens since Sept. 4:
1. Jason Stenta, senior vice president of payer sales at Optum, was tapped as senior vice president and chief commercial officer of Walgreens, effective in early October. Mr. Stenta will lead the company's commercial growth strategy, drive B2B healthcare services development and commercialization for its core assets, and enhance payer, health system provider and life sciences company partnerships.
2. Grand Blanc, Mich.-based McLaren Health Care shuttered its convenient care clinics located inside Walgreens stores in September. A total of nine clinics, mostly located in rural areas, were closed, including several inside Walgreens locations. These facilities, known as Now+Clinics, provided care to communities that supported McLaren's hospital and primary care services.
3. Walgreens agreed to pay $106.8 million to resolve allegations of violating the False Claims Act by fraudulently billing government healthcare programs for prescriptions never dispensed. Between 2009 and 2020, the Department of Justice alleged that Walgreens had improperly billed for prescriptions that were processed but never picked up by the patients. Despite not providing the medications, the pharmaceutical company collected tens of millions of dollars from federal health programs.
4. Two South Carolina residents filed a proposed class-action lawsuit on Sept. 4 against Walgreens that alleges the retailer failed to warn customers about a carcinogenic ingredient in a common cold medicine.