Omnicare Lawsuit: $948.8M Verdict, Bankruptcy, and Sale

The Omnicare lawsuit ended in a $948.8 million federal judgment on July 7, 2025, after a Manhattan jury found the country’s largest long-term care pharmacy had billed Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE for more than 3.3 million invalid prescriptions between 2010 and 2018. The verdict pushed Omnicare into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, led to a court-approved $250 million sale of the business, and left parent company CVS Health directly liable for $164.8 million.1Reuters. Judge Orders CVS Omnicare Unit to Pay $949 Million Over Invalid Prescriptions

What Omnicare Did

Omnicare supplies prescription drugs to nursing homes, assisted-living facilities, group homes, and similar long-term care settings. The government alleged that when a resident’s prescription expired or ran out of refills, Omnicare kept dispensing the drug anyway. Instead of getting a new prescription from the physician, the pharmacy assigned a new prescription number without the required paperwork or pharmacist approval, then billed federal healthcare programs as if everything were valid.2U.S. News & World Report. Judge Orders CVS Omnicare Unit to Pay $949 Million Over Invalid Prescriptions

Automated systems drove the practice. According to trial evidence, Omnicare’s software auto-populated an artificially high number of refills for Medicare Part D patients, in some cases as many as 99, unless a staff member manually intervened. The government said Omnicare failed to train pharmacy staff to identify valid prescriptions, track expiration dates, or obtain renewals when prescriptions lapsed.3Bass, Berry & Sims PLC. Government Enforcement for Invalid Prescriptions and Auto-Refills The conduct spanned more than 3,000 residential facilities across over 30 states and the District of Columbia, and potentially affected tens of thousands of patients.4vLex. United States v. Omnicare

The Whistleblower Case

The lawsuit began on June 1, 2015, when Uri Bassan, a former pharmacist-in-charge at an Omnicare location in Albuquerque, filed a qui tam complaint under seal on behalf of the federal government, 29 states, and the District of Columbia.5PubKGroup. FCA Bassan v. Omnicare The United States intervened in late 2019 and took over the case, pursuing three theories under the False Claims Act: factually false claims, legally false claims based on false certifications of regulatory compliance, and false statements material to an obligation to repay the government.4vLex. United States v. Omnicare

As the relator in a case the government intervened in, Bassan is entitled to between 15 and 25 percent of the government’s recovery.5PubKGroup. FCA Bassan v. Omnicare

The Verdict and $948.8 Million Judgment

After a four-week trial in federal court in Manhattan, a unanimous jury on April 29, 2025, found Omnicare liable for 3,341,032 false claims. The jury also found that CVS Health, which acquired Omnicare in 2015, had caused 1,016,039 of those claims. Single damages came in at $135,592,814. The jury concluded that CVS’s own conduct did not add any money damages on top of what Omnicare already owed.6U.S. Department of Justice. Statement of U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton on Verdict in U.S. v. Omnicare and CVS Health Corporation

On July 7, 2025, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon issued the final judgment of $948.8 million. It broke down into two pieces:1Reuters. Judge Orders CVS Omnicare Unit to Pay $949 Million Over Invalid Prescriptions

  • $406.8 million in trebled damages, three times the jury’s single-damages figure, as the False Claims Act requires.
  • $542 million in statutory per-claim penalties.

CVS Health was held jointly and severally liable for $164.8 million of the penalties, tracking the roughly 30 percent of false claims the jury attributed to it after the 2015 acquisition.7Arnold & Porter. CVS and Omnicare Face FCA Damages and Penalties

The False Claims Act mandate of treble damages plus a per-claim civil penalty is what produced a judgment this size. The per-claim penalty ranged from $14,308 to $28,619 in 2025, adjusted annually for inflation.8U.S. Department of Justice. False Claims Act Applying even the statutory minimum to all 3.3 million claims would have produced roughly $26.9 billion. Judge McMahon capped the penalty at about four times actual damages, calling the total “serious, but not surreal,” and characterized the underlying conduct as “a very big fraud on the government, one that lasted over almost a decade, and one that Omnicare was aware of but avoided taking steps to correct.”9Whistleblower LLC. Omnicare Ordered to Pay $949 Million in False Claims Act Case

Appeal, Bankruptcy, and Sale

Omnicare and CVS Health both filed notices of appeal on September 15, 2025. The Second Circuit later granted a motion to hold the consolidated appeal in abeyance while the parties explore a settlement, with status updates required every 30 days.10CourtListener. United States of America ex rel. Uri Bassan v. Omnicare, Inc.

A week after the appeal, on September 22, 2025, Omnicare filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the Northern District of Texas, listing assets of $100 million to $500 million against liabilities of $1 billion to $10 billion. Filings said the bankruptcy was triggered by the “imminent threat of government enforcement actions” after Omnicare could not post the required appeal bond.11Bondoro. Omnicare Omnicare called the penalties “extreme and, we believe, unconstitutional” for what it described as “technical violations of pharmacy law,” noting that the government had never alleged patient harm.12CVS Health. Omnicare Initiates Voluntary Chapter 11 Process CVS Health did not file for bankruptcy; the filing isolated Omnicare’s liabilities from CVS’s core operations.13HealthLeaders Media. How CVS Omnicare Subsidiary Unraveled to Bankruptcy

To keep operating, Omnicare took $110 million in debtor-in-possession financing from JMB Capital Partners.14Skilled Nursing News. Long-Term Care Pharmacy Giant Omnicare Files for Bankruptcy, Explores Restructuring Options On April 1, 2026, it entered an asset purchase agreement with GenieRx Holdings LLC, a partnership between Milrose Capital and Integro Asset Management. GenieRx acted as the stalking horse bidder, and when no competing qualified bids came in, Omnicare canceled the auction. On May 13, 2026, the bankruptcy court approved the sale of substantially all Omnicare’s assets for a reported $250 million, with closing expected later in 2026 pending regulatory approval.15CVS Health. Omnicare Receives Court Approval for Sale of Business to GenieRx

Omnicare is negotiating a consensual Chapter 11 plan with the U.S. government, its largest creditor, along with CVS Health and the creditors’ committee. The court extended Omnicare’s exclusive period to file a plan through July 20, 2026.16Stretto. Omnicare Chapter 11 Case Information The government can collect CVS Health’s $164.8 million share of the judgment independently of the bankruptcy estate.17Elevenflo. Omnicare False Claims Act Bankruptcy

Earlier Omnicare Settlements

The 2025 judgment was not Omnicare’s first federal case. Three earlier False Claims Act matters resolved through settlement rather than trial:

Each of those matters ended without a formal finding of liability. The 2025 case went to a jury, produced a verdict, and ended in a judgment the company could not pay.

What This Means for Facilities and Residents

Omnicare serves nursing, assisted-living, and independent-living facilities in 47 states. The government never alleged that any patient failed to receive necessary medication or was otherwise harmed by the billing conduct.12CVS Health. Omnicare Initiates Voluntary Chapter 11 Process Through the Chapter 11 process, Omnicare said operations would continue “without disruption” and committed to paying post-petition wages, benefits, and vendor obligations.21McKnight’s Senior Living. Long-Term Care Pharmacy Omnicare Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy The pending GenieRx sale, once it closes, will transfer the operating business out of CVS Health entirely.