Eckerd to Pay $9 Million in Drug Settlement

Eckerd Corp., a drugstore chain owned by J.C. Penney Co., said it will pay $9 million to the federal government and 18 states to settle a 1995 civil case over under-filled prescriptions.

Partially filled prescriptions became an issue for regulators after it became known that pharmacies sometimes were billing insurers for full prescriptions, but delivering only part of an order when inventories were limited.

Some customers never returned to pick up the rest of their medication, although that form of overcharging represented a small fraction of all prescriptions filled, Eckerd said.

Eckerd said it was working to install new electronic processing systems to address the problem. In the meantime, the drugstore chain is giving customers three-day “starter-kits” for medication and then billing once the full prescription is available, the company said.