Major pharmacies nationwide have been revealed to have shared medical records of customers at the request of law enforcement without requiring a warrant, according to a new letter sent to U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra.
The Dec. 12 letter, written by three lawmakers, comes amid their investigation into the practices of major pharmacy chains across the country where lawmakers looked into each company’s “routine disclosure of patients’ medical information to law enforcement agencies.”
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The investigation was launched with 44 other members of Congress in July after they received an “outpouring of concern from Americans” about “health privacy and surveillance” after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.
During their investigation, lawmakers found that CVS (CVS) -), Kroger (KR) -) and Rite Aid (RAD) -), have instructed their workers to immediately respond to requests from law enforcement to hand over prescription records of customers — all without a warrant and without the review of legal professionals due to their staff facing “extreme pressure.”
“Americans’ prescription records are among the most private information the government can obtain about a person,” read the letter. “They 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 also found that Amazon (AMZN) -), Cigna (CI) -), Optum Rx (UNH) -), Walmart (WMT) -) and Walgreens (WBA) -) do require a legal professional to review law enforcement’s demands to obtain prescription records before responding to their requests, but they do not require a warrant prior to unveiling that information.
“All of the pharmacies surveyed stated that they do not require a warrant prior to sharing pharmacy records with law enforcement agents, unless there is a state law that dictates otherwise,” read the letter. “Those pharmacies will turn medical records over in response to a mere subpoena, which often do not have to be reviewed or signed by a judge prior to being issued."
Also, out of all of the eight pharmacies that lawmakers looked into, Amazon Pharmacy was the only one that confirmed that it had a policy to notify customers about law enforcement requesting their pharmacy records.
A 2022 survey by the American Medical Association has indicated that concern over the security and privacy of health data has been "magnified" by the overturning of Roe v. Wade last year.
The survey revealed that 94% of the 1,000 patients it questioned want companies to be held legally accountable for how their health data is used. It also found that more than 75% of patients want to receive requests before a company decides to use their health data for a new purpose.
As a result of the lawmaker’s recent findings during their investigation, they also asked for Becerra in the letter to strengthen HIPAA regulations, which is a federal law that requires safeguards to be put in place in order to protect the sensitive medical information of a patient from being disclosed.
“Pharmacies can and should insist on a warrant, and invite law enforcement agencies that insist on demanding patient medical records with solely a subpoena to go to court to enforce that demand,” read the letter.
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