A group representing thousands of workers in CVS Caremark plans is warning that the pharmacy benefit manager could be selling patient information and prescription drug histories of state employees and others in New Jersey.

CVS Caremark, however, says the advocacy group is publicizing “false and misleading claims” and that the company “places the highest priority on maintaining our customers’ privacy.”

“Alarmed About CVS Caremark” is an initiative by Washington D.C.-based Change to Win, a group comprised of seven affiliated unions, to educate health plan managers, trustees and consumers about the newly merged CVS Caremark. The new company is not the country’s second largest pharmacy benefits manager and largest retail pharmacy chain, according to the group.

The group says that more than 75,000 New Jersey state employees and families are at risk of their privacy being violated, based on an analysis of similar government contracts conducted by Change to Win.

Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS Caremark administers prescription benefits for New Jersey’s state employees through a contract with Horizon BlueCross BlueShield. The company also contracts with Gloucester County and New Jersey-based companies Wyeth Corp and Merrill Lynch & Co. Other large employers contracting with CVS Caremark in New Jersey include Ernst & Young and Morgan Stanley.

The advocacy group said “taken together, hundreds of thousands of New Jersey workers and their families may be at risk of having their privacy violated.”

The group alleges that CVS Caremark uses patient data to market for drug companies and sells patient data to health, life and long-term care insurance companies that may use the information to deny people coverage or charge higher premiums.

“CVS Caremark may be exploiting its access to an unprecedented amount of private patient information without meaningful consent or knowledge by plan participants,” Chris Chafe, executive director of Change to Win, said in a statement. “While CVS may be profiting by using patient data for marketing and by allowing third parties to data-mine, the costs to workers and their families from these practices can be significant not only in terms of lost privacy, but also in rising prescription drug costs and health plan costs.”

Claims refuted

Carolyn Castel, a spokeswoman for CVS Caremark, told IFAwebnews.com that Change to Win’s allegations amount to “false and misleading claims.”

“CVS Caremark places the highest priority on maintaining our customers’ privacy,” Castel said. “We have extensive policies and procedures in place to safeguard our customers’ sensitive personal and health information, and we follow federal and state laws in handling this information.  In addition, we have invested heavily in training and technology to maintain and safeguard privacy, which is central to our health care operations.”

Citing HIPAA regulations and other privacy laws, Castel said CVS Caremark shares patient data “within the company and with third parties only to the extent permitted by these laws, and we obtain patient authorization when required by law.”

She added that “under very limited circumstances,” CVS Caremark exchanged “aggregated, de-identified data with third parties to assist in the health care community in understanding patient use of prescription medications with the goal of achieving better health care outcomes.”

“This is beneficial to our customers, to our health plan customers, to the health care system, and to taxpayers,” Castel said.

“The New Jersey campaign by Change to Win is the latest in a series of unfounded attacks against CVS Caremark,” she added. “This consortium of labor unions has been disparaging our company since 2007 because we refused to waive our employees’ right to vote confidentially in union elections.  This right has been guaranteed by federal law for decades, and we believe our employees should retain the freedom to exercise this right.”