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"What Omnicare would do some of the time, when it wanted to keep the business of a nursing home, it would say,
'Well, we'll give you rock-bottom or below-cost prices on the drugs of your Medicare Part A patients' ... to get the rest of the patients to pay higher," said Virginia Davidson, one of Gale's attorneys. She called the settlement a "pretty significant figure" and praised Gale, a 45-year-old resident of Wadsworth in northeastern Ohio, for filing the lawsuit. "Not too many people sitting at work getting a paycheck are going to stand up and risk their livelihood by pointing out illegal conduct," she said. The federal government would get between 65 and 70 percent of the settlement, or up to $84 million. Omnicare settled another major lawsuit in 2009, when it agreed to pay $98 million stemming from allegations that it paid kickbacks to nursing homes to gain their business, and received kickbacks for buying and recommending drugs. Omnicare's stock fell 5.7 percent to $54.16 in afternoon trading.
[Associated
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