No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: DJ’s Pursuit of Alleged Drug Co-Pay Kickbacks Extends to the Charities Themselves

The United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts recently announced settlements totaling $6 million with two drug co-pay foundations.  According to the DOJ, the two charities – Patient Access Network Foundation and Good Days – “functioned not as independent charities, but as pass-throughs for specific pharmaceutical companies to pay Medicare patients taking their drugs.”   From the government’s perspective, the illegality of this arrangement is simple to explain: drug makers who sell to customers on Medicare cannot line the pockets of those patients with cash bonuses for buying drugs, and they also cannot get a third-party charity to do it for them.