Florida is looking for personal prescription data from medication

The regulatory authorities of Florida Insurance have asked companies to hand over extensive data on the pharmacies of humans, including personal data and prescription drug consumption, an unusual step for a state supervisory authority that has a effect on data protection concerns.

In the past few weeks, an eight-sided application has been to the pharmacy performance managers, which requested detailed information on pharmacy contracts, claims and payments, as can be seen from the copies of the request indicated by Bloomberg News. In most states, managers of pharmacies perform the prescription drugs, including the remuneration insurance for employees.

The state asked about files that contained the names of the people, birth data, the drug cast, the provider who had prescribed the medication and the pharmacy that it had given, under many other data fields.

In the request, data on the residents of Florida and people from other countries were requested in 2024 after the concerns of recipes in Florida. In the state's insurance authority, the information was asked for the information until February 21. It is not clear how many companies have provided data.

The width of the questions and the requested personal information were triggered for some in the industry.

“The idea that the great government in any medicine box will be of someone is not that most Americans reflect in my opinion,” said Joe Shields, Managing Director of Transparency-RX. The trading group represents smaller pharmacies -managers who end themselves as more transparent than the large companies that dominate the industry.

When asked about the data protection problems that the data request increases, the Office of Insurance Regulation said in an explanation called by e -mail that such concerns come about “those who are not regulated or have surveillance in their industry”.

“All concerns about the effects on privacy should be addressed to the actual health insurance companies for health insurance, in which countless data injuries were included in order to uncover millions of sensitive information from Americans,” said a spokesman and found that OIR “will continue to request data in the best interest of consumers”.

Florida issued a new law to regulate drug services in 2023. The industry was checked whether its agreements with pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmacies increase the costs for patients and employers.

The agency's request is to uncover sensitive data about treatments in mental health or the reproductive care of the patients, according to Shields. Florida has one of the nation's strictest bans, apart from the intervention after six weeks of pregnancy. The law states that medication for abortion must be distributed personally by a doctor and cannot be sent by post, which is more restrictive than other parts of the country.

There is no indication that the supervisory authorities in Florida ask for the information on the enforcement of abortion banks or other guidelines that go beyond monitoring pharmacy managers. However, the data you are looking for are considerably more extensive than the insurance regulators, which are usually asked for market monitoring. Checking of the behavior of insurance companies usually begin with a sample of data that identify information.

“Would you like to know the name of the actual person?” Lee Hertz, director of the Quest Analytics Group, who advises employers about the pharmacies' services. “It's creepy.”

A PBM has drawn the privacy with the state in a telephone call with the supervisory authorities, but they were released that someone in the company who asked not to be mentioned to discuss his business with the state. There are exceptions to laws for the privacy of the federal government that enable personal data to be revealed, but the state has not justified why it is asked about the data, said this person.

Photo: Photographer: George Frey/Getty Images

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