CVS agreed Tuesday to post signs in its Pennsylvania stores warning that it won’t fill prescriptions for drugs to treat injuries from automobile accidents, and to issue refunds to anyone in the state whom it sold such drugs at full price.
Under a settlement with Attorney General Jerry Pappert filed Tuesday, CVS admits no wrongdoing, but agrees to pay the state $25,000 for “investigation costs and other public protection purposes” and take the required measures to avoid civil penalties.
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Pappert had gone after CVS for allegedly failing to comply with a 1990 state law that requires pharmacies to provide a 20-percent discount to car-crash victims. The law was meant to curb auto-insurance costs, but some drugstore chains, including CVS, have complained that the discount is too steep, and they can’t afford it.
CVS, which has more than 360 pharmacies in Pennsylvania, had allegedly adopted a policy of either refusing to fill the prescriptions, or simply not giving the discount.
“In Pennsylvania, pharmacies that fill prescriptions related to car accidents must honor the discount,” Pappert said in a statement. “However, pharmacies, as a company policy, can decide not to fill these particular prescriptions at all. In this case, CVS was accused of filling the prescriptions for auto accident victims without applying the discount or notifying its customers that the discount is available under law.”
Pappert said CVS had also failed to disclose “the true reasons” for not filling some crash victims’ prescriptions. Customers at some CVS stores were told that the pharmacy is “not able to handle this type of claim,” he said, when in reality, CVS “voluntarily decided against handling auto accident drug claims.”
Under a settlement with Pappert filed Tuesday, CVS is required to “clearly and conspicuously post a notice” telling auto accident victims that it doesn’t fill prescriptions as provided under the 1990 law and “will not honor the discounted price should they decide to bring these particular prescriptions to one of its stores.”
CVS customers seeking refunds have until Dec. 12 to file a complaint and document that they paid full price for drug prescriptions related to an auto accident.
