Florida Seeks Drug Prescription Data With Names of Patients and Doctors

Health|Florida Seeks Drug Prescription Data With Names of Patients and Doctors

Florida’s insurance regulator has demanded an unusually intrusive trove of data on millions of prescription drugs filled in the state last year, including the names of patients taking the medications, their dates of birth and doctors they’ve seen.

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation in January sought this information from pharmacy benefit managers like UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx and CVS Health’s Caremark, companies that oversee prescription drugs for employers and government programs.

It remained unclear why the state was ordering the submission of so much data. In a letter to one benefit manager reviewed by The New York Times, the regulator said the state required the data to review whether the benefit managers, known as P.B.M.s, were compliant with a 2023 state law aimed at lowering drug prices and reining in the managers.

But the demand is sparking concerns about government overreach and patient privacy.

“You don’t need such granular patient information for purposes of oversight,” said Sharona Hoffman, a health law and privacy expert at Case Western Reserve University. She added: “You have to worry: Is the government actually trying to get information about reproductive care or transgender care or mental health care?”

Florida’s six-week abortion ban, enacted by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, and the state’s Republican-dominated legislature, requires that doctors who prescribe abortion pills dispense them in person, not through the mail. Another Florida law banned transgender transition care for minors and made it harder for adults to seek such care. Last year, a judge struck down key parts of that law, though it is still being enforced while the legal fight makes its way through the courts.

The data requested by the state could, in theory, be used to determine whether physicians are complying with those laws.