Couples suck Walgreens and Optum RX over the son’s death after $ 500 price increase for asthma medicine

On By Littum

A Wisconsin couple sues Walgreens and a Pharmacy Benefit Management Company and claims their son died because he couldn’t afford a sudden $ 500 spike in his asthma medicine.

Shanon and William Schmidtknecht from Poynette brought their trial in the federal court in Milwaukee on January 21, a year to the day their son Cole died at the age of 22.

According to the trial, Cole Schmidtknecht of asthma suffered all his life. He managed it with daily inhalation orders of the medicine Advair Discus and its generic equivalents.

He stopped at a Walgreens pharmacy in Appleton on January 10, 2024 to fill his prescription and was told that the costs had jumped from $ 66 to $ 539 out of pocket. He couldn’t afford the new costs he left the pharmacy without medicine. He tried to control his condition with his rescue hall, but suffered a deadly asthma -attack days later, according to the trial.

Schmidtknechts claims that the pharmacy’s benefit to the management company Optumrx violated the Wisconsin Law by raising the cost of the medicine without a valid medical ground and does not fail to give 30 days of advance announcement on drug rises.

Pharmacy’s benefits managers act as intermediaries between health insurance companies, prescription drug companies and pharmacies. Optum RX Services Prescription claims for more than 66 million people across the United States, according to the trial.

Asthma death case
Asthma death case

The trial claims that Walgreens Pharmacy employees could not offer Cole any solutions to get his usual medicine. They told him that there were no cheaper alternatives or generic medications available, they do not contact OPTUMRX to request an exception on behalf of coles, and they did not ask Cole’s doctor to request an exception for him, his parents claim.

The trial is looking for unspecified damage.

“The construction of both Optumrx and Walgreens was regrettable,” one of the family’s lawyers, Michael Trunk, said in a statement. “The evidence in this case shows that both Optumrx and Walgreens make profits first and are directly responsible for the death of coles.”

Optumrx spokespersons did not immediately respond to Wednesday notifications that applied for comment. In a statement in April last year that expanded sympathy to the family, the company said a review of coles claims showed that the day he visited the pharmacy, he bought another asthma medicine, Generic Albuterol, for a $ 5 co-payment on January. 10 – A medicine that it says he also achieved in October 2023. His case was handled “in accordance with the industry’s practice and the patient’s insurance design,” the company said.

However, the trunk said Wednesday that the $ 5 -Generic Prescription Cole -Filled was to his rescue Haler, not Advair Discus Inhalator, which he took daily. He said Cole was unable to fill his Advair Discus prescription because it had suddenly become too expensive.

Walgreens -Officers did not immediately respond to a Wednesday -e -Mail who sought comment on the trial.