Does CVS really #DenyCare?

If you’re a drug pricing nerd like me, you got really confused — and a bit excited — when CVS started trending on Twitter on Thursday. For those Twitter-averse, a bit of backstory: The hashtag #CVSDeniesCare started trending after news broke that the company’s PBM was cutting its reimbursement to The Pill Club, a wildly popular startup that delivers birth control and can also prescribe these drugs via telemedicine in a number of states. 

The Pill Club bills itself as a solution to the growing push to restrict access to birth control and other reproductive health services around the country. And so when CVS Caremark decided to cut The Pill Club’s reimbursement, the company was quick to brand the move as an attack on women’s health. And with that came the Twitter outrage, including from Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) 

So what really happened? A spokesperson for CVS told STAT that the changes to The Pill Club’s reimbursement applied to all “non-traditional pharmacies” “that fall between a retail pharmacy model and a mail order pharmacy model.” (The spokesperson didn’t name other companies affected but it likely means companies like HIMS, the startup that delivers erectile dysfunction meds.) In a blog post, CVS denied that the change was at all related to The Pill Club’s policies on birth control, and that the changes would have applied even if The Pill Club sold drugs other than birth control. “It is irresponsible for The Pill Club to falsely suggest access to women’s health care is being jeopardized just so it can maximize its profits at the expense of our PBM clients,” CVS wrote. 

Without the details on what other companies, and what drugs, are impacted by CVS’ change, it’s hard to know for sure how squarely this change hurts birth control providers, or whether this is just some very clever public messaging from The Pill Club. I’ll just say that if you spend your time listening to PBM critics (and who doesn’t?) you know this story all too well — PBMs are regularly and routinely criticized for drastically cutting reimbursement for various drugs, birth control included. 

As Antonio Ciaccia, the head of government relations for the Ohio Pharmacists Association and a vocal PBM critic put it: “I can tell from the trailer that this is a movie I’ve seen before.”