Kroger Ordered to Give DOJ Documents About Opioid Prescriptions

Kroger Co. must give the US Department of Justice unredacted documents as part of an investigation into whether the company submitted false claims to Medicare about opioid prescriptions, despite Kroger’s patient privacy concerns.

Kroger didn’t show that producing documents with protected health information, such as patients’ names and birthdates, would violate an exception in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act that grants DOJ document access, Magistrate Judge Karen L. Litkovitz of the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio said in a Tuesday order.

• Kroger argued the DOJ must comply with the “more extensive” law enforcement purposes ...