ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — A St. Louis County pharmacy and one of its owners agreed to a settlement in a civil suit that alleged them of filling pain medication prescriptions that they knew were fraudulent.
Olive Street Pharmacy and part-owner Irina Shlafshteyn agreed to pay $1,507,808.50 in a settlement after a civil suit alleged they dispensed controlled substances, including some that were submitted to Medicaid or Medicare.
According to a press release from US Attorney Sayler Flemming, Shlafshteyn was a pharmacy technician and managing employee. The civil suit accused her of ignoring red flags that indicated the prescriptions were not legitimate. Those red flags included written prescriptions that were clearly tampered with, dangerous combinations of drugs that are commonly sought after for recreational purposes and opioid prescriptions more than 17 times the recommended maximum daily dosage.
Among the drugs dispensed by Olive Street Pharmacy was Subsys, an oral fentanyl spray used in cancer patients experiencing breakthrough pain. The lawsuit said Olive Street Pharmacy and Shlafshteyn knowingly dispensed high dosages to people who did not qualify.
Most of the Subsys prescriptions were written by Dr. Phillip Dean, a Wentzville doctor who pleaded guilty to illegally distributing opioids in 2018. Some of the people Dean was illegally distributing the opioids were women with whom he had intimate relationships.
The lawsuit alleged that Shlafshteyn knew Dean was having intimate relationships with at least one of the people to whom he was prescribing drugs but filled the prescription anyway.
As part of the settlement, Shlafshteyn gave up her Missouri pharmacy technician license and can not participate in federal healthcare programs for 10 years. Olive Street Pharmacy will no longer be allowed to dispense immediate-release fentanyl drugs like Subsys and will be under additional restrictions when it comes to dispensing controlled substances.
