CVS Owes the State Some Cash

Woonsocket-based CVS has been ordered to pay the state of Massachusetts $895,000 after a statewide investigation into their “special way” of Medicaid billing. It seems that this local chain of pharmacies, which has recently been in the news for mixing up at least 75 customers' prescriptions in 2005, has been charging the state full price for prescriptions that were only partially filled or never picked up after being ordered. For those not familiar with the Medicaid system (called MassHealth here), the state reimburses the pharmacies for the medications of members. CVS was supposed to return the Medicaid money to the state when the prescriptions just sat there, but instead, they kept it. Pretty smart, huh? Of course, the local pharmacy chain denies any wrongdoing and is blaming its online billing system for the oversight. This isn’t the first time that CVS has been accused on this billing issue. In 1998, CVS and the state battled over a similar problem and in 2002, the pharmacy refused to pay any money until more investigating was done. Bostonist doubts that any CVS Extra Care Card is going to be accepted when they pay off this bill.