In another case of pharmaceutical companies behaving badly, Cardinal Health Inc. will pay more than $13 million to settle allegations it violated federal law by paying kickbacks.

“Cardinal Health thought it hit upon a surefire moneymaker by paying kickbacks to doctors, which cost health benefit programs millions of dollars in potentially fraudulent claims,” Joseph Bonavolonta, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office said.

Based in Dublin, Ohio, Cardinal Health was buying off physicians practices in exchange for those doctors purchasing medication from Cardinal, instead of other companies. Such behavior is a clear violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits such payments in exchange for doctors purchasing drugs used by Medicare patients.

Lest you believe such activity was taking place long ago, and only now being resolved, officials say Cardinal Health got away with this across the country from February 2013 to January of this year.

“Cardinal Health recruited new customers by offering and paying cash bonuses in violation of the Anti-Kickback Statute and False Claims Act. Kickback schemes, such as this one, have the potential to pervert clinical decision making and are detrimental to our federal health care system and taxpayers,” U.S. Attorney for Boston Rachael Rollins said.

You may recall, Cardinal Health is also — along with McKesson Corp., AmerisourceBergen Corp. and drugmaker Johnson and Johnson — part of the $26 billion proposed settlement alleging they fueled the opioid epidemic.

Perhaps lawmakers should take a closer look at whether there are steps to be taken that could eliminate the temptation by Cardinal and others like it to treat millions upon million of dollar in penalties as just the cost of doing business while lives are on the line.