Tell your state’s pharmacy benefit managers: Hold the line on data privacy!

The petition to all 50 states’ pharmacy benefit managers, including UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx and CVS Health’s Caremark, reads:

Keep our prescriptions and other personal health information private. Deny all unnecessary requests for excessive individual patient information from state insurance regulators.

Why is this important?

A few weeks ago, Florida’s insurance regulator set a horrifying precedent that’s going overlooked: It demanded individual patient data, including names, prescription drug usage, dates of birth, and the doctors patients have seen from companies that manage prescription drugs.

Florida officials say they need this information to better regulate pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs): the companies like UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx and CVS Health’s Caremark. If you have health insurance through your job or the government, you might even have one of these prescription cards in your wallet right now.

Big PBMs like Optum have a history of jacking up drug prices and absolutely need to be regulated. But the law allows the government to maintain oversight over these companies AND protect our personal health data. This should not be a trade-off, and we sense ulterior motives in a state like Florida with a six-week abortion ban and significant restrictions on gender-affirming care. And we’re not the only ones suspicious: legal experts are also concerned about the precedent this would set, with some questioning if this demand is even legal.

If this is happening in Florida, it could happen in another state next, and we want to send a message loud and clear to PBMs to HOLD THE LINE.