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Anthem Blue Cross CuraScript Class Action Lawsuit
By Mike Holter
Anthem Blue Cross has been hit with a proposed class action lawsuit alleging it discriminates against patients with certain chronic diseases by forcing them to obtain medications through a mail-order pharmacy. This subsequently drives up costs and threatens lives, according to the plaintiff.
The Anthem Blue Cross class action lawsuit was filed by an unidentified HIV-positive San Diego resident who claims Anthem is violating California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act by requiring individual plan members to purchase “specialty medicines” from a mail order pharmacy of Anthem’s choosing — CuraScript — unless they obtain a hardship waiver every six months that allows them to buy medicine at brick-and-mortar pharmacies.
The new policy goes into effect May 1, 2013 and covers more than two dozen conditions, including HIV/AIDS, cancer, hemophilia, multiple sclerosis and osteoporosis.
“As of March 1, 2013, using a retail pharmacy will be considered going ‘out-of-network’ for these seriously ill consumers who will be required to pay full price for their specialty medicines, many costing several thousand dollars each month,” the class action lawsuit says.
Patients will also suffer by no longer having access to the kind of face-to-face interaction with pharmacists that many of them need and that specialty pharmacies provide, the class action lawsuit says.
“By implementing such practices, Anthem Blue Cross will thus reduce the quality of prescription drug care provided to thousands of Class members by forcing enrollees to use CuraScript,” the Anthem Blue Cross class action lawsuit states.
In addition, getting medicines by mail puts HIV/AIDS patients at additional risk because a delayed or stolen shipment could seriously jeopardize care, the class action lawsuit says. Also, by being forced to receive regular deliveries of pharmaceuticals at their homes or workplaces, HIV/AIDS also will lose their “fundamental and inalienable right to privacy,” the plaintiff asserts.
According to the class action lawsuit, Anthem is switching to home delivery as part of a contract to buy drugs in bulk and cut costs.
An Anthem spokesman defended the new policy, saying research has found that patients using CuraScript have a 93 percent adherence rate to their drug regimens – nearly 10 percent higher than those using traditional drugstores.
Despite the policy covering dozens of chronic conditions, the class action lawsuit is seeking to only represent individual Anthem Blue Cross Health Plan members who require specialty medications to treat HIV/AIDS and who either already have or will be required to participate in the program starting March 1, 2013 to continue to receive coverage for such prescriptions.
The Anthem Blue Cross CuraScript Class Action Lawsuit case is John Doe v. Blue Cross of California et al., in the Superior Court of California, County of San Diego.
The plaintiff is represented by Harvey Rosenfield, Pamela Pressley and Jerry Flanagan of Consumer Watchdog and Edith M. Kallas, Alan M. Mansfield and Kristin Libby of Whatley Kallas LLC.
Updated January 15th, 2013
All class action and lawsuit news updates are listed in the Lawsuit News section of Top Class Actions
12 thoughts onAnthem Blue Cross CuraScript Class Action Lawsuit
I had Cigna insurance for the almost two years I’ve been on Growth Hormone due to severe growth hormone deficiency caused by traumatic brain injury. I need this medication to live. Cigna’s home delivery specialty pharmacy has been great about handling and supplying this very delicate (has to be handled in a specific way, kept between 36-46 degrees and can only be removed from that temperature for the few minutes it takes to inject it daily.) On October 1st, we switched to Blue Cross – Blue Shield and they require me to go through only one pharmacy: Accredo. It has been a nightmare. I started the process over two months ago and am constantly given the run around, put on hold, told outright untruths and now I am almost two weeks without my medication and my health is failing rapidly. I don’t want to die because a pharmacy is refusing to give me necessary medication. Blue Cross Blue Shield approved it but won’t let me go through any other pharmacy. My need for this medication is well documented with brain MRI’s, growth hormone stimulation tests, labs. I’ve been on the medication for almost two years and on the .8 mg per day dosage since the end of June, with follow up labs showing my IGF-1 level to be at 199, within the acceptable range of 94-252. Any other pharmacy would have filled my prescription long before now and certainly wouldn’t have allowed me to run out. I had both a neurologist and an endocrinologist prescribe this medication for me – both well qualified. There is no justification for what they are doing. The only entity that benefits from my not receiving my medication and even the risk to my life, not to mention the rapidly decreasing quality of life, is Blue Cross Blue Shield. They are able to eliminate costs by having specialty medications denied to patients and they have deniability – although not plausible – by having the medications denied by the pharmacy supplying them. There is obviously an exclusivity agreement between Blue Cross Blue Shield with Accredo, because we are not allowed to use any other specialty pharmacy – even one like Walgreen’s Specialty Home Delivery Pharmacy, while Walgreen’s Home Delivery Pharmacy or Walgreens Pharmacy (these are all three separate types of pharmacies) are both considered “in network” for Blue Cross Blue Shield. Why are the other two pharmacies with Walgreen’s considered in network, while the specialty pharmacy with Walgreen’s is not covered at all? How is it possible for a pharmacy to deny life saving medication prescriptions from qualified doctors, approved by the insurance company and how is it possible for them to cause discontinuation of an ongoing necessary medication. How many lives has this cost? How many patients have been stonewalled? I’ve spent so many hours so many days on this and also calling back and forth to my doctors and Accredo trying to expedite this, to no avail. This is appalling. Please add me to any lawsuit involving this issue. I read a ton of consumer affairs complaints all stating similar issues and so many asking for a class action suit.
Thanks.
Allegra Genereaux
I can’t agree more, considering Im not to miss even one dose, having to wait weeks for the approval from the insurance company and delivery time, compounded with the fact that will only refill after 25 days from last refill, leaves me regularly going on and off my meds.
I wish someone would please notify me so I can join this lawsuit and also for my daughter. We have went weeks without medication. We both have psoriatic rheumatoid . I know have uncontrollable blood pressure due to the pain my poor daughter has scales on her head and arms and can’t walk up the stIrs because when you have this it feels like glass going thru your feet. The dr said he would testify in court!! He approves and has to stay on the phone for at least 1 45 min we call all the time And your promised it will be there but it doesn’t show up . It’s time to take a stand!! Please email me if you have any info no one should have to go thru this much pain.
Or watch a child suffer thank you bri email jones.bri27@yahoo.com
I originally had a terrible time with Curascript. Now, Curascript has sent their specialty meds to Accredo. I have spent countless hours on the phone with numerous people, trying to get my medications, billing, etc straightened out. I have Anthem, BC/BS of Virginia, who still won’t allow you to use a local pharmacy for these specialty meds. I have had my fill, and would like to be included in this law suit.
Count me in. Sick of this company and the stress that they have given me!!! How do I sign up????
How do I sign up for this? Curascript won’t deliver my meds because of a balance on my account which is their fault for not putting charges through when I authorized them to.
After getting my prescription for Enbril from Express scripts and filled by Curascripts for over 4 years today they changed the prescription my doctor wrote and now reuse to fill my order. The problem is with Express scripts I can only use Curascripts an curascripts will not fill the prescription as written even though it is authorized. i wish to take part in the lawsuit – I can easily get my medications at my corner walgreens tonight instead I have been without them for one month because of their systems not syncing properly and a whole lot of finger pointing from Express Scripts to CuraScripts. In my opinion they are both horrible companies and should be shut down.
Count me in too! Because of this (and the jerking around by CuraScript) I’ve been off my meds since the first of the year.
I am in the process of getting my first shipment from Curascript. My regimen is Isentress and Truvada, drug company copay cards in conjunction with Anthem Blue Cross primary insurance. Very simple. All previous pharmacies had no trouble getting the 2 prescriptions filled on time or a little early and i would happily pick them up there. Curascript?? I have yet to receive my meds due a week ago. Problem with one of the drug copay cards. Did they call me? No, they just neglected to ship my meds! I only found out when calling for the tracking number which of course does not exist. I resubmitted the drug card copay number and was not reassured the problem was fixed. I was just told they would call me if billing still couldn’t process my copay card. They also wanted to know exactly how many pills I had left from my last fill from my previous pharmacy. My emergency supply?! This is my lifeline if you f**k up and delay shipping my order!
How the hell in 2013 can this company NOT provide me web access to my account?? I have to call these people daily to see what the status of my order is. No live calls back! No one lyou speak with ever offers to follow up or provides their extension, and most cannot even pronounce the names of my drugs. And why can’t there be a location to pick up my order if it ever truly ships? I can either have mu aids drugs shipped to me at work (seriously), have FEDEX deliver to my door with signature required for 3 consecutive attempts while I’m at work and no one will answer before it gets returned to their warehouse, or I can opt “no signature required” and have FEDEX leave the $7500 of pharmaceuticals on my porch intil I get home, and if they get stolen, iI pay the entire $7500 to replace my 3 months of drugs. So i guess i can find someone to be at my house all day to accept delivery which still is still not a reasonable answer. If they allowed USPS DELIVERY, it would go into my mailbox, end of story. But private couriers by law cannot touch mailboxes. This should be a simple process that does not stress me out and keep me up at nigjt worrying if I’m going to run out of meds and be ome resistant to the regimen I actually love that I have zero side effects from. Curascript has been one of the worst Spects of my e perience with living eith HIV.
i have always had blue cross insurance and i am a hiv
patient for 10 years i want to be included in this lawsuit.