Pharmacies Abusing Prescription Data

[Snowalker]

No surprise here and I'm sure you can substitute Albertsons with any of the pharmacy brands as this is so typical of the drug pushers. The PRC, as you will read, has filed a lawsuit to stop this practice. I think it would also be helpful to remind your local pharmacist (if you must use one) that you are aware of this practice and will report them if you see them engaging in such irresponsible behavior.

Pharmacies Are Profiting At Your Expense – Your Help Is Requested

The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (PRC) has been in the forefront in asserting that pharmacies -- and their marketing partners, the big pharmaceutical companies -- act improperly when using the medical information in customer prescriptions to mail letters or call customers in order to sell more drugs.

In the case of Albertsons, a supermarket powerhouse operating in
33 states that owned the Sav-On, Osco and Jewel-Osco pharmacies (until recently sold), it proceeds with such programs without customer permission while converting personal prescription information into a highly sophisticated, retrievable database.
It does not inform the customer’s doctor about what it is doing.

The database allows Albertsons to personally identify you by name, telephone number, address and drugs prescribed. This allows communications to be sent based on your medical condition as implied by the information in your prescription. Albertsons developed a highly profitable business in this way, filling more than 100 million prescriptions a year, based on your confidential medical information combined with your name and address.

PRC filed a lawsuit to put an end to these practices. It alleges that Albertsons’ activities in retrieving your confidential medical information to sell more drugs by sending personally addressed communications to your home, without your consent, violate your privacy.

In fact, thousands of Albertsons customers received letters or calls asking for the renewal of your prescription or suggesting you try a new drug. This may have occurred years ago with the communication often designed as a "refill reminder" from your "friendly family pharmacist".

If this happened to you or someone in you family, please let us know. It could be very helpful to the outcome of the lawsuit.

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Privacy Rights Clearinghouse is a nonprofit consumer information and advocacy organization based in San Diego, CA. To contact PRC, see: http://privacyupdate.c.topica.com/maahd9KabAaEYbRXc3Zb/
or call (619) 298-3396.

 

[dj]

I was afraid this might be happening -
Unfortunately, the local pharmacy and pharmacist (for a chain-store pharmacy) probably have no control over this
Chain store pharmacies (that's most all of them nowadays, at least in the U.S.) are connected by computer at the corporate level - corporate people and help desk personnel can pull ALL the data from the local computer - and even fill scripts and print prescription labels for a local store from several states away. There are legal issues to this that appear to be largely ignored by the corporate dudes.
The wide area computer connection is helpful for the typical outsourced computer help-desk (with many hundreds of scripts per day being filled, you need immediate attention to computer downtime), it is wide-open to abuse at several levels.
I don't have any good answers, other than to suggest using a truly local pharmacy not associated with a chain.
Widespread and well directed customer complaints (preferably directed at the corporate level, especially if examples of improper use of patient data are given) may be the best approach - but I hold out no real hope of changing things.
Sorry for the dim outlook on this - I'm a pharmacist myself, and it seems like much of my time is spent simply trying to minimize potential damage rather than being able to focus on truly helping people with their health. -- many days I think I should have been a plumber.