Along with the rapid growth and expansion of CVS into the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry comes the growth and expansion of ethical responsibility, such as maintaining HIPAA Privacy Records and the safe handling of patient’s personal health care information. One of the ethical challenges CVS has been faced with was the accusation in 2009 that CVS/Caremark was inappropriately disposing of patient’s healthcare information. It was claimed that employees working at CVS were just getting rid of old prescription bottle labels and prescriptions themselves by throwing them into the trash bin and not shredding or destroying the patients’ personal information that could be found on these items. In 2008, CVS/Caremark found itself with more legal problems when it was accused of deceptive business practices. A lawsuit was filed implicating CVS/Caremark stores in 28 different states of deceptive practices, when they directly recommended to Doctors that they write their patients prescriptions for name brand drugs instead of generics. CVS/Caremark led the doctors to believe that their patients would save money by using the brand name drug, when in fact, the opposite was true and it was costing their patients more money. …show more content…
Then, in 2012, CVS was met with yet another ethical challenge, this time by the DEA, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency. The DEA suspended CVS license to sell controlled substances at two different Florida locations due to the overdistribution of Oxycodone. According to records, these two locations alone were found to have ordered three million oxycodone tablets in 2011, which was well above the average order for a U.S. pharmacy during that same year. Additionally, CVS found itself with an ethical challenge in 2010 when a manager chased a male shoplifter out of a store and a bystander kicked and punched the shoplifter while the manager held him around his neck. The man died and the incident was initially ruled a homicide and then later as an accident. This incident does not leave a positive impression for the way it deals with shoplifters, and as with the other incidents, it affects both the customers as well as the company’s stakeholders. As far as how well CVS has handled their ethical challenges, they have followed their court ordered settlements, mandates and outlined guidelines/strategies for managing and controlling their previous ethical deviations in order to prevent those situations from occurring again. In addition, in 2013, CVS made the ethical choice not to fill narcotic prescriptions from 36 providers that the company found to have high prescription rates. In 2014, the company also chose to voluntarily stop selling cold medications in the West Virginia area because they were being used to make methamphetamines in labs nearby. As CVS repositions itself as a socially responsible organization and moves forward to a more health care-oriented company that places importance on consumer health, and sets them apart from the competition, they are taking major steps to in order make certain that their business practices remain ethical and socially responsible.
CVS is offering benefits to and providing different programs to their customers in order to help redefine its direction and organization. Some of those programs include their Pharmacy Advisor and Maintenance Choice program which educates and assists patients with staying on their medications. CVS/Caremark also partnered with Medicare and Medicaid Services to inform patients about new services available to them under the
ACA. In 2014, as part of their new socially responsible image, CVS made the ethical choice to quit selling tobacco products at their stores. This was a bold and confident move for CVS and while they sacrificed immediate profits, they realized that the socially responsible message it sent to the stakeholders and customers would benefit them in the long run, by building a good reputation and attracting additional customers which would increase their revenue long term. In addition to not selling tobacco products, CVS offers smoking cessation programs through their MinuteClinics. CVS has taken things a step further for their stakeholders by implementing an employee reward program and designing corporate governance programs for their share-holders as well as to protect the core interest of their company. Additionally, CVS has become involved in the community and has donated over $75 million to different organizations. As far as being socially responsible to the environment, CVS now keeps progress records in its annual Corporate Responsibility Report (CSR) and has set goals in place and taken steps to reduce its carbon imprint 15% by 2018. In summary, their outlook for the future looks positive. CVS has shown that it has learned from its unethical mistakes and has set goals and guidelines to move forward in an ethical and socially responsible manner.
The allowed client and patients to order prescriptions and ordinary merchandise through the website, which was called CVS.com from then on. During that, time in 1999 CVS also announced the launch of ProCare, a succession of specialty pharmacies, to attend patients with permanent diseases and special conditions that require complex and expensive drug treatments. The market for particular pharmaceutical products, estimated around $16 billion, was a fast-growing segment of the drug industry in 1999 (Rundle, 2000). However, it was also highly fragmented. CVS was one of the pioneers in seeing and understanding the potential of having a strong position in this segment of the market.
According to the report provided by the consultant, the employees at this facility were not taking precautions in safeguarding the patient’s health information. Therefore, the employees at this facility were in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). It is important for employees to understand the form of technology being used and the precautions they must take to safeguard patient information.
CVC pharmacy chain which is the largest drugstore company the United States of America made dramatic call and decision that received numerous debates and criticism worldwide. The globally trusted company made a controversial decision to take away the tobacco and cigarettes from their stores. The decision from the hugely known drug store company was indeed brave and strategic in consideration of the business ethics that they organizations wanted to maintain. Their decision was made public on February 2014 hence received many reactions from the agencies, governments, individuals, corporate and the media. Therefore, this paper will elaborate the significance of the strategic decisions made in the industry by examining whether the business decision
CVS 's retail pharmacy operations are functioning poorly and dissatisfying customers. Many customers are defecting as a result. A pharmacy service improvement team has documented the current prescription fulfillment process, its exception rates, and the problems generated by exceptions. The company must now decide how to change this process, and what information system changes to make in support of the redesigned process.
• This practice can be unethical toward the patients because the amount of money spent on promotion by pharmaceutical companies to advertise
CVS Caremark is the largest U.S. pharmacy services provider. CVS is known for operating pharmacies, which sell prescription and over the counter drug, as well products such as photo processing services, cosmetics and convenience foods. CVS focus on charitable giving by partnering with Community Heroes. CVS provides $55,000 in grants to Rhode Island nonprofits that focus on health care, children, social services and military support. Through community grants, CVS is focusing in ways to give to their community by providing access to health care for underserved communities. Last year, CVS Caremark provided a $5,000 grant to the Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless (IPH) to increased access to health care services for underserved population
CVS is committed to helping patients make the best decisions about their health care. The CVS specialty division does this providing education and support detailed to a patient's condition, as well as assisting patients knowledge of how they can take their medications correctly and safely. CVS Health has provided home health support and specialty medicines for approximately 35 years to patients in all 50 states together with Puerto Rico. CVS Health offers inclusive specialty medication offerings; including services throughout 7,600 national CVS/pharmacy locations. Many of our specialty pharmacy services are accredited by two, self-regulating health care review groups
However for employees working in healthcare organization, conflicting situations may arise with confidentiality. Presenting a case study where HCA disclosing an employee’s confidential information, a nurse recently had to increase the work hours due to financial situation. The nurse was a bit apprehensive with the increase due to it would be stressful on top of the other responsibilities. Due to the stress, the nurse ended up using form of narcotics to help deal with stress level and anxiety, which seemed to have helped with providing care for patients. As time continued on, the nurse began to care for patients and signed out medication for them even though the patient was not prescribed the medication. The nurse was later discovered when working on the surgical unit as the pharmacist notice unfamiliar rise in medications along with signature errors. The incident was reported to the HCA for further reviewing. After analyzing the situation, actions taken were to have a leave of absences as well present this to a board of personnel. This then causes some form of breach of confidentiality for the nurse with HCA. Nevertheless, HCA was fearful of the patient’s safety and needed to address an issue that maybe more common that they think. As HCA, they are in charged with a fiduciary duty to protect the mission and values of the organization (Badzek, Mitchell, Marra,
The Key points of this article is to show the consequences when violating HIPAA and to show how the Office of Civil Rights is taking action to try and secure the patient's information. The
patient history is neglected resulting to a serious health crisis or ever death and lawsuits.
Nurses, physicians, and pharmacists are held legally responsible for safe and therapeutically effective drug administration no matter who actually prescribed it. All members of a health team may be held liable for a single injury to a client. Nursing organizations have adapted similar codes of ethics that can serve as guides for the development of one's own code. The client's rights as defined by these codes of ethics are to promote health, prevent illness, restore health, and alleviate suffering (White, Duncan, & Baumle, 2011, p. 516). For example, a patient has every right to know necessary information about a drug he or she is receiving and to refuse to take it after having been given an explanation, no matter
...al responsibility. Pharma was selling their product in large quantities even though it was compounding pharmacie. CompCARE encouraged doctors to fax the list of the bogus patients. After the discovery that one of its products seemed to cause heart attacks, they ignored the complaints and still continued to file large orders instead of inspecting on the cause of the problem and to find ways to curb all that.. Their brand name and reputation cannot be recovered by going to their local store and getting another one.
Sharing patients’ information with manufacturers play very important part in optimizing patients’ health outcomes while on specialty medications. The information will help researchers have further understanding about side effects and mechanism of actions, which were not observed in clinical trial phases. Patients’ authorizations are the keys of disclosing PHI to manufacturers. Therefore, HIM professionals’ roles are to ensure that authorization forms signed by patients must meet HIPAA and state regulations as well as manufacturers’ criteria of collected information.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act (PSQIA), Confidential Information and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA), and the Freedom of Information Act all provide legal protection under many laws. It also involves ethical protection. The patient must be able to completely trust the healthcare provider by having confidence that their information is kept safe and not disclosed without their consent. Disclosing any information to the public could be humiliating for them. Patient information that is protected includes all medical and personal information related to their medical records, medical treatments, payment records, date of birth, gender, and
When I walked into the clinical long-term care facility this past Thursday morning, I quickly performed my general and environmental survey. I noted the things that I saw, heard, and even smelled—yes, smelled--inside and around the building. Since that morning, my brain has been swarmed with questions, concerns, and issues surrounding the ethical and patient-centered care in long-term facilities. I chose the article, “The Covert Administration of Medications: Legal and Ethical Complexities for Health Care Professionals” by L. Martina Munden (2017) because I desire to further my understanding of autonomy, informed consent, and a trusting patient-nurse relationship so that I can apply my