Sept 13 (Reuters) - Walgreens Boots Alliance ( WBA )

agreed to pay $106.8 million to settle charges it fraudulently

billed the U.S. government for prescriptions that were never

dispensed, the Department of Justice said on Friday.

The Justice Department said Walgreens violated the federal

False Claims Act between 2009 and 2020 by submitting payment

claims to Medicare, Medicaid and other healthcare programs for

prescriptions it processed but which were never picked up.

Walgreens instead resold the same prescriptions to other

patients without reversing the original payment claims, causing

it to be paid twice and receive tens of millions of dollars for

prescriptions it never provided, the department said.

The Deerfield, Illinois-based pharmacy chain did not admit

liability in agreeing to settle.

"Due to a software error, we inadvertently billed some

government health care programs for a relatively small number of

prescriptions our patients submitted but never picked up,"

Walgreens said in a statement.

"We corrected the error, reported the issue to the

government and voluntarily refunded all overpayments."

Friday's settlement resolves three whistleblower lawsuits

filed in Florida, New Mexico and Texas.

The Justice Department said the payout took into account

Walgreens' cooperation and its "significant" steps to upgrade

its in-house pharmacy management system to ensure that the

billing problems don't happen again.

Walgreens previously refunded $66.3 million for the settled

claims and is being credited for this amount.

The chain recently operated about 8,600 stores in the United

States, but said in June it plans to close a significant number

of underperforming stores over the next few years.

Steven Turck, a former Walgreens pharmacy manager who filed

the Texas case, will receive $14.92 million from the settlement.

Andrew Bustos, a former Walgreens district pharmacy supervisor

who filed the New Mexico case, will receive $1.62 million.