Community pharmacy owner/manager respondents reported that patients’ prescriptions were transferred without permission.
Results from a recent NCPA survey indicated that patients’ prescriptions are being transferred from independent pharmacies to chain stores without patients’ permission.1
Almost 80% of community pharmacists who responded to the survey said they’ve lost patients because of unfair “patient steering” in the past 6 months — and CVS Health is most often the culprit, NCPA said in the news release.2
For the survey, NCPA collected responses from 412 pharmacy owners and managers between September 8-11, 2020.
“Many members have been telling us that their patients are being transferred to larger competitors, and in many cases the patients don’t know when, why, or how. This survey sheds some light on the problem, and the results are very disturbing,” said B. Douglas Hoey, RPh, CEO of NCPA.
According to the survey, 79% of community pharmacists reported that their patients’ prescriptions were transferred to another pharmacy in the last 6 months without their patients’ knowledge or consent. The median average of patients lost was 12.
The survey reported that 77.7% (248) of respondents had their customers’ prescriptions transferred to CVS.
“Patients are sometimes transferred from one pharmacy to another, but they must be notified, and they must consent to the move. That’s not happening in many cases…and CVS Health is most often the place where community pharmacy patients end up,” NCPA said.
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