Johnson & Johnson the focus of recent consumer litigation

Many California readers are familiar with Johnson & Johnson, which has grown to become one of the nation's top healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. The company is also the focus of a recent class-action suit filed on behalf of nursing home residents and their families. The consumer litigation claims that Johnson & Johnson intentionally worked to push its pharmaceutical products on nursing home residents, in violation of federal law.

The suit asserts that Johnson & Johnson worked with Omnicare, a healthcare consultant, to structure ways to ensure that nursing homes would choose Johnson & Johnson products over other drugs available within the marketplace. This was allegedly accomplished by developing and implementing a work-around to avoid the provisions of Medicaid rules intended to keep costs down. If these allegations are true, Johnson & Johnson is not only in violation of federal Medicaid law, but could also suffer serious damage to its reputation within the healthcare industry.

Essentially, Medicaid requires that drug rebates and discounts have to remain below a certain threshold. Once that limit has been reached, any additional savings must be passed along to Medicaid. However, the recent litigation claims that Johnson & Johnson and Omnicare worked together to avoid crossing the discount threshold. In addition, Johnson & Johnson is accused of paying kickbacks to Omnicare in exchange for their drugs being promoted as being the best possible choice for nursing home residents.

Current nursing home patients and their families are able to join this consumer litigation matter. In addition, the estates of deceased residents are also able to participate. The lawsuit claims that residents were switched to Johnson & Johnson medications, prescribed unnecessary medications and were overcharged for the medications they received. If a family believes that they may have been subjected to these acts, it is imperative that they determine their rights under the law. The lawsuit has two categories of participants, one for California patients and one for patients across the rest of the nation.

Source: TheAlternativeMedia.com, "Johnson & Johnson being sued for drug conspiracy," May 18, 2013