Three pharmacists fined almost $304,000 for PSP referral and fee-sharing schemes

Three pharmacy business partners in Quebec who unfairly acquired patients through a patient support program have been fined a collective total of close to $304,000 and ordered to share court costs. Two of the three pharmacy owners accounted for the lion’s share of the fines. Daniel Vermette was ordered to pay $78,000 for obtaining clients through patient support program providers Innomar Strategies Inc., and Bayshore Healthcare Ltd., while Marc Chabot was fined $70,500 for the same offence involving Innomar. According to the decision documents issued by the disciplinary council of the Ordre des pharmaciens du Québec, a pharmacy Vermette co-owned with Chabot gained between 12,000 and 16,000 patients through the PSP referrals while a second pharmacy—which Vermette co-owned with another pharmacist, Jérôme Bergeron—got between 900 to 1,400 patients. Vermette and Chabot were also found guilty of illegally sharing their fees with a non-pharmacist third party and ordered to pay a $62,500-fine each. This was in relation to an agreement that had Innomar directing patients registered with its PSPs to the two pharmacies in exchange for fees representing between 2.4% and 2.6% of the gross volume of the associated drug sales. Read: JUDGEMENT: Pharmacists who got exclusive referrals from compassionate program should have known this was unfair The pharmacy co-owned by Vermette and Chabot paid between $500,000 to $600,000 a month to Innomar under this agreement, according to the decision documents. These payments do not “correspond to the fair market value of the services” received from Innomar and, as such, contravene the code of ethics of pharmacists. By agreeing to this fee-sharing agreement, the pharmacists failed in their “duty of independence, which affected the public's perception of pharmacists,” wrote the disciplinary council. The third pharmacist, Bergeron, was fined $30,000 and ordered to pay one-third of court costs for obtaining clients through Innomar and Bayshore Healthcare Ltd., through the pharmacy he co-owned with Vermette. The disciplinary council noted that Bergeron took steps—such as hiring chartered accountants—to ensure the amounts his pharmacy remitted to Innomar represented the fair market value of services rendered. Read: My fake employee did it: Pharmacist who made fraudulent claims hit with 13-month suspension and $17,500 in costs The offences took place over nine years from 2011 to 2020. The referral arrangements gave the three pharmacists an unfair advantage and triggered complaints from other community pharmacists—many of whom were located closer to where the patients lived—as well as from a number of patients who would have preferred to get their medications from another pharmacy. “The (pharmacists) secured a clientele through an agreement with a drug wholesaler without the patients specifically choosing to do business with (their) pharmacy,” wrote the disciplinary council. “Thus, to have access to the drug included in a PSP, the patient is enrolled in a program that integrates the pharmacies that the wholesaler chooses without the intervention of the patient. Patients thus become captives of the PSP.” Patients were also put at risk because their regular community pharmacies may not have been informed of the medication provided under the PSPs. “This can put patients at risk when refilling a prescription for other medications at their community pharmacy or getting a completely new prescription that is not included in the (patient file),” wrote the disciplinary council. Read: An honest mistake with distressing consequences: Pharmacist gives contraceptive to patient trying to have a baby

Three pharmacists fined almost $304,000 for PSP referral and fee-sharing schemes

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