Express Scripts to pay out $9.5 million settlement

BOSTON Express Scripts yesterday said that it will pay $9.5 million in an agreement with 28 states that alleged the pharmacy benefits manager misled consumers when it encouraged doctors to switch patients’ cholesterol drug brands under the guise of controlling costs, according to the Associated Press.

Express Scripts will pay $9.3 million of the settlement total to the states and the District of Columbia. The other $200,000 will be split up by no more than $25 apiece, to be given to individual patients to reimburse them for physician visits and tests linked to switches between rival brands of cholesterol-controlling drugs known as statins.

Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon said Express Scripts was deceptive in telling doctors in some cases that patients and their health plans would save money from a switch to a different drug brand to treat the same condition.

Express Scripts “did not clearly disclose to their client plans that money earned by Express Scripts accrued from the drug switching process would be retained by the company, and not passed directly to the client plan,” Nixon said.

In addition to the payments, Express Scripts is required under the settlement to make “clear and conspicuous disclosure” about its drug-switching practices, according to Martha Coakley, attorney general in Massachusetts, one of the states involved.