Amazon-owned PillPack settles DOJ insulin lawsuit for $6 million

The Department of Justice announced on Monday that PillPack would pay nearly $6 million after admitting to giving patients moreinsulin at a time than Medicare and Medicaid allowed.

Limits on the amount of drugs a pharmacy can give to a patient are put in place by government healthcare programs. According to the settlement, PillPack would give patients a full box of 300 units of insulin, an amount that exceeds the limits. It would submit false reimbursement claims in order to get more money from the health programs. Patients were given their prescriptions too early.

In certain instances, patients accumulated multiple extrainsulin pens that they did not need according to their prescriptions, according to the DOJ statement. The settlement will be paid to the federal government.

Amazon used the infrastructure of PillPack to create its Amazon Pharmacy service. PillPack is a service under the Amazon Pharmacy umbrella.

There was a lawsuit from April to November. Prior to that, it was common for pharmacy to not open pre-packaged boxes of insulin pens to ensure customers had enough life-saving medication.