CVS scrambles after illegally charging women for birth control
The mix-up, caused by a price-coding mistake, came to light when a congresswoman’s staffer was charged a $20 copay.
The Affordable Care Act is a complicated law, but one of its provisions is fairly simple: Women who have health care coverage aren’t supposed to pay for birth control (unless they work for Hobby Lobby).
CVS would be somewhere near the top of the list of organizations that should know that, but according to The Huffington Post, the pharmacy chain has mistakenly charged about 11,000 women copays for birth control. CVS says the confusion is the result of a price coding error.
In a letter to U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., CVS’ head of federal affairs, Sol J. Ross, wrote: “It will be resolved and refund checks will be [sent] to affected plan members by September 26. In fact, refund checks have already started to go out and all should be received by October 1.”
Another CVS spokesperson told HuffPo that CVS apologizes “for any inconvenience this issue may have caused.”
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