Loudon County Schools votes to join lawsuit related to insulin overcharging

The Loudon County Board of Education's monthly board meeting included an item that wasn’t initially on the Oct. 3 agenda : a vote to join a lawsuit.

Board members voted unanimously to join a lawsuit related to insulin overcharging. The board consists of recently-elected chair Bobby Johnson Jr., vice chair Scott Newman, Stephanie Hatcher, LaVonne Barbour, Andrew Disney, Kim Bridges, Lisa Harvey, Melissa Browder, Kenneth Presley and Zack Cusick, who attended the meeting by phone.

Chris McCarty, an attorney with Lewis Thomason and counsel for the county school system, is working on the litigation effort with the Frantz Law Group out of California. William Shinoff, Frantz Law Group’s lead counsel, explained what the case is focused on in an interview with The News-Herald.

“In 2021, the Senate Finance Committee came out with a report regarding insulin pricing, which showed that there is a price-gouging scheme going on by a number of insulin manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers that have financially impacted these self-funded health plans,” Shinoff said.

Because Loudon County has a self-funded health plan through the state — instead of a traditional, fully insured health plan where the insurance company pays for all the pharmacy benefits for those covered under their plan — Shinoff said the county has been impacted.

“(Self-funded health plans are) paying some 10 to 20 times the appropriate amount for diabetes medication, and so what we're trying to do in the litigation is recover the funds that these companies have overcharged over about a five-year period of time.”

Loudon County Schools will be one of a few hundred school systems and municipalities involved in the multi-district litigation that will be consolidated in federal court in New Jersey, Shinoff said. The complaint is in progress.

The defendants on the manufacturer's side are Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi. On the pharmacy benefit manager's side, it's Express Scripts, CVS Caremark and OptumRx.

Frantz Law Group works on a contingency fee, Shinoff said. If there is no recovery in the case, Loudon County pays no attorney's fees and no cost.

If there is a recovery, the county pays a 30 percent fee, which Shinoff said is reduced from the traditional 40 or 50 percent.

“I run our public entity practice and we try to make sure that a majority of the funds end up going to the clients,” Shinoff said. “I make sure that we reduce our fees for our public entity clients.”

COMMUNITY COMES TOGETHER

At the top of the meeting, Hadassah Feezell, a Loudon High School student representative, gave a report for September. The month went by quickly at the school, Feezell said, and fall sports are all coming to an end.

“Recently we have partnered with neighboring districts to support our flood relief efforts for Tennessee communities affected by Hurricane Helene,” Feezell said. “Loudon County Schools took two full trucks and trailers full of disaster relief items — including water, canned food, diapers and other essential goods.

"We have really come together this month with our community and hopefully we will continue to keep in touch.”

Karli Hammontree, a Greenback School student representative, provided a monthly report as well. Hammontree said it’s been a very busy month at Greenback.

“Tonight our high school freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors are decorating the hallways in the spirit of Homecoming Week — that was unfortunately canceled last Friday,” Hammontree said. “But last week we did have our dress-up days and we had our Homecoming Dance on Saturday, which our theme was ‘Meet Me At Midnight.’

"It was a wonderful turnout and we appreciated our school's support to do that.”

During his report, Mike Garren, director of schools, thanked the students for representing their schools.

“I know it's not an easy task to come out and talk publicly like this, and you both did an excellent job tonight,” Garren said. He echoed Feezell’s sentiments about the community stepping up for relief efforts.

He also thanked Kimberly-Clark, the consumer goods company.

“They stepped up and donated more than 10,000 boxes of Kleenex to our school system this last week, and we are in the process of distributing those out to the schools.

"As we go into the cold, sick season we'll have plenty of Kleenex in our classrooms to get through that,” Garren said.

BUSINESS ITEMS

The board unanimously approved the following coaches:

Travis Fletcher, Highland Park, elementary girls basketball assistant, nonpaidCory Frye, North Middle, middle school girls basketball assistant, paid

An out-of-state field trip request for North Middle School’s eighth grade to go to Washington, D.C., in May with 80 students and eight chaperones was also approved unanimously.

The following people were unanimously approved to the Science Textbook Committee: Jennifer Hutchings (K-5; EES), Carla Ellis (6-8; FLMS), Jasmine Suttles (K-5; GBS), Sheila Anderson (6-8; GBS), Gabi Tallent (9-12; GBS), Tracy Trout (K-5; HPES), Lily Bunch (K-5; LES), Jody Bunch (9-12; LHS), Carla Thompson (K-5; NMS), Kelli Edwards (6-8; NMS), Cassandra Melton (K-5; PES), Stephanie Collis (6-8; PES), Katelyn Marshall (K-5; SES).

The board also approved:

Budget amendments, with Newman voting no;A Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) report;A local Education Agency (LEA) compliance report; andA Loudon High School athletic request for $7,500 for the softball field.