Relator for:
United States ex rel. Lisitza et al. v. Omnicare, Inc.
United States ex rel. Lisitza v. CVS Corporation
United States ex rel. Lisitza et al. v. Walgreens Co.
United States ex rel. Lisitza v. Par Pharmaceuticals Co. Inc.
For decades, Bernie Lisitza was a typical local pharmacist and owned a small “mom and pop” drugstore outside of Chicago, IL. But when small town pharmacies were becoming extinct, Bernie went to work for Omnicare, the nation’s largest pharmacy for nursing homes. While working at Omnicare, he discovered that the pharmacy was routinely switching Medicaid patients’ prescriptions for more expensive forms of the drugs. He did not see any medical reasons for these switches and believed that Omnicare was doing this to increase company profits by cheating state Medicaid programs. Bernie confronted his superiors about his discovery and was subsequently fired.
After being fired from Omnicare, Bernie went to work as a temp at other local pharmacies where he soon discovered that CVS and Walgreens were also switching Medicaid patients’ drugs for more expensive forms. Disgusted that the pharmacies were putting profits before patients, he filed qui tam lawsuits against all three companies. Between 2006 and 2008, Bernie’s three Medicaid fraud qui tam cases recovered more than $120 million for taxpayers.