Multiple pharmacy chains in the United States including CVS Health, Kroger, and Walgreens Boots Alliance are handing over patients’ medical records to law enforcement agencies without warrants, according to a new congressional investigation.
These concerns began when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, allowing individual states to determine abortion laws, they said.
Lawmakers said they had contacted eight pharmacy chains: CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Cigna, Optum Rx, Walmart Stores Inc., the Kroger Company, Rite Aid Corporation, and Amazon Pharmacy as part of their probe.
They found that while pharmacies are legally permitted to tell their customers about government demands for their data if requested, many do not.
“As a result, many Americans’ prescription records have few meaningful privacy protections, and those protections vary widely depending on which pharmacy they use,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter.
In their congressional review, the Democrats found that among the eight pharmacy chains, three—CVS Health, the Kroger Company, and Rite Aid Corporation—fail to require legal review before submitting patient records to law enforcement and ask staff to hand over such personal information immediately in store.
Those chains, which collectively have 60,000 stores nationwide according to The Washington Post, indicated that their pharmacy staff “face extreme pressure to immediately respond to law enforcement demands,” the lawmakers wrote.
“CVS Health and the Kroger Company both defended this practice, arguing that their pharmacy staff—who are not lawyers or paralegals—are trained to respond to such requests and can contact the legal department if they have questions,” the letter read.
Patient Rights
Overall, none of the eight pharmacies surveyed, however, require a warrant prior to sharing pharmacy records belonging to Americans with law enforcement agents, unless state law dictates otherwise, the lawmakers found.Furthermore, only CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance, and Kroger have committed to publishing annual transparency reports on law enforcement demands while just one company, Amazon Pharmacy, notifies patients when law enforcement agencies demand pharmacy records, as long as there is no legal prohibition to doing so.
In the United States, patients have a right to know who is accessing their health information through the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (HIPAA) “accounting of disclosure” mechanism.
HHS defines disclosure of health information as the “release, transfer, provisions of, access to, or divulgence in any manner of information outside the entity holding the information.”
However, Americans must take it upon themselves to request medical record disclosure data, as opposed to the health care providers notifying their patients.
In their letter, the lawmakers noted the pharmacies will turn medical records over in response to a “mere subpoena,” which often does not have to be reviewed or signed by a judge prior to being issued.
“To justify this low standard of protection, several pharmacies cited language in HHS regulations that allow healthcare providers to disclose such records if it is required by law, pursuant to legal process, or pursuant to an administrative request,” they wrote, adding that Americans’ prescription records are among the “most private information the government can obtain about a person.”
Such prescriptions “can reveal extremely personal and sensitive details about a person’s life, including prescriptions for birth control, depression or anxiety medications, or other private medical conditions,” they wrote.
Concerns Over Potential ‘Witch Hunt’
Lawmakers said thousands of Americans have their medical records secretly accessed by law enforcement agencies every year without a warrant.They signed off their letter by calling on HHS to “address the shortcomings in pharmacy privacy practices” and overhaul the HIPAA standards for the legal process for disclosure.
“Americans deserve to have their private medical information protected at the pharmacy counter and a full picture of pharmacies’ privacy practices, so they can make informed choices about where to get their prescriptions filled,” they concluded.
In a statement on social media on Tuesday, Mr. Wyden, who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, claimed the findings mean that law enforcement officials in Republican-led states “could get a woman’s medical records and prosecute her for procuring abortion pills, or even birth control if Republicans target contraception as some have promised to do. This would be a full-blown witch hunt.”
A spokesperson for Amazon told the publication it is “committed to protecting our customers’ privacy—not only because it’s required by law, but because it’s the right thing to do.”
“When required by law, we cooperate with law enforcement officials and comply with court orders. Amazon Pharmacy notifies a customer prior to disclosing health information to law enforcement as long as there is no legal prohibition to doing so. Requests from law enforcement are rare, and represent a very small percentage of the prescriptions we fill for customers,” the spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Rite Aid declined to comment when contacted by The Epoch Times.
