The Good Fight
April 23, 2009Neil Thompson ’99 used his training as a pharmacist and lawyer to bring a major corporation’s questionable billing practices to light
By Meleah Maynard
When he was growing up, Neil Thompson wanted to be a pharmacist like his dad. He followed that path and eventually took over the family business, enjoying his job immensely, particularly the closeness he shared with longtime customers. But he also harbored an ambition of becoming a lawyer. Not long after he fulfi lled that ambition, he found himself at the center of an investigation of one of the country’s top drugstore chains.
For those who have not yet heard about Thompson, he and a fellow pharmacist, Dan Bieurance, were involved in a suit against Walgreens in 2005, alleging that the company had been using a billing system that overbilled Medicaid on some prescription drugs since 1999. After a long investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, a settlement was fi nally announced last September. Walgreens agreed to pay Minnesota and three other states a total of $9.9 million. Admitting no wrongdoing, the company did say it would change its procedures to stop the overbilling. The 2008 settlement was the third time Walgreens has negotiated a multimillion-dollar deal to settle Medicaid-related problems in recent years.
From pharmacist to lawyer
Thompson was 12 when he started sweeping floors at Nile Pharmacy, which his dad opened in south Minneapolis in the early 1950s. When he was a little older, he began waiting on customers, slowly learning typical pharmacy technician tasks such as typing labels and counting medications. He also delivered prescriptions on his bike and, later, by car. “I had learned the business before I even went to college,” says Thompson, who earned his pharmacy degree from the University of Minnesota in 1977.
After graduation, Thompson considered going to law school. But with his young wife, Liz, pregnant with their first child, he decided it was best to join the family business and get to work. Seventeen years later, with his four kids nearly grown, he began his studies at William Mitchell. He worked during the day at the pharmacy and attended classes at night.
Building a case
In 1999, the same year he graduated from William Mitchell, he sold his family’s pharmacy to the Snyders Drug Stores chain. Though he was busy starting his law practice, he wanted to keep his pharmacy skills sharp, so he also worked part time at local pharmacies. In May 2000, he took a job working a few days a week for Walgreens. For the first few years, he was a floater pharmacist, working at 97 different stores, as needed. Then, he settled in part time at the store located just a few blocks from his family’s old pharmacy.
Thompson hadn’t worked for Walgreens long when he noticed billing problems with certain customers, particularly those with what is called “dual eligibility.” People with AIDS, for example, often have both Medicaid and private health insurance. When billing for these dual-eligible customers, pharmacies are only allowed to bill the government for the copay or deductible remaining after the private insurer has paid, no more. But Walgreens, which had net sales of $53 billion in 2007, was using a software program that incorrectly billed dual-eligible claims, receiving more than the allowed copay or deductible.
Managers and supervisors were aware of the problem and had taught Thompson and Bieurance how to bypass the software and bill correctly. But the pair routinely saw other employees using the old system that overcharged Medicaid. So they went to supervisors to talk about the issue. They got nowhere. “I reported the problem to five different supervisors,” Thompson recalls, adding that he even discussed it with an internal auditor. “What we got in response was a scathing email telling us to do things the wrong way.”
That’s when Thompson and Bieurance realized that if the overbilling was going to be stopped, they were going to have to do something about it themselves. Armed with years of evidence, Thompson called on local attorneys with experience in handling cases based on the False Claims Act.
Justice at last
In February 2005, Thompson and Bieurance’s lawyers brought the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis, convincing them there was reason to open an investigation into Walgreens’ billing practices. FBI agents soon visited the homes of Walgreens’ managers and executives. And that’s when the real waiting began, says Thompson. Over the next three and a half years, as the Justice Department quietly built its case (under the False Claims Act, all investigations are kept secret until the investigation ends), the stress was nearly unbearable. Thompson and Bieurance continued to work together for Walgreens until 2006, when Bieurance left to take a position elsewhere. “I think the pressure got to him, and he didn’t want to stay,” says Thompson, who remains friends with his former colleague.
While Thompson considered leaving, too, he decided it was best to stay on and gather evidence. “For years, I stood right next to people at work knowing what was going on—and that they didn’t know,” says Thompson. “That was the most stressful thing I’ve ever gone through in my life, including the fact that when I owned my own pharmacy, I was held up at gunpoint eight times over the years.”
When the investigation and subsequent settlement became public in the fall, Thompson got an unexpected surprise. “Customers came in every day. Some were my old customers from my family’s pharmacy,” he says. “A lot of them didn’t even come in to buy anything. They just wanted to congratulate me for doing what I did. It was the most gratifying experience I’ve ever had in my life.”
Today, Thompson is on leave from Walgreens and is building his law practice, which is housed in the same building where his family’s pharmacy used to be. About 80 percent of the cases he works on involve the False Claims Act. But he also does wills, trusts, bankruptcies, and more. After investigating seven of the top pharmacy chains over the last several years, Thompson feels certain that about half are doing things the right way. As for the other half, he says: “Well, let me just say that they’re not off the hook.”
