On Monday, Vermont U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan announced that the company Practice Fusion, Inc., will pay $145 million to settle criminal and civil charges as they encouraged physicians to prescribe opioids to patients who might not need them, by setting up an electronic health records system.
According to the court documents, Practice Fusion created an electronic health record system for a pharma company and solicited nearly $1 million payment in return. The system resulted in increased prescription of opioids that were not medically necessary.
The company will pay $26 million in criminal fines and forfeiture. In a separate civil settlement, Practice Fusion agreed to pay $118.6 million to resolve the allegations that it accepted payments from pharma companies helping the users to submit false claims for federal incentive payments.
In 2018, electronic health records company Allscripts acquired Practice Fusion. According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office, the settlement is the largest criminal fine in federal court history in Vermont.
