Whoa. Ignoring all advice not to collect more personal information than you legitimately need for the stated purpose, Amgen tries to gobble up tons of protected health information that it will disclose to unspecified third parties for a decade…. as the price of them giving you a copay card to help you pay for their medication.
Larry Husten reports:
The tumult over the new cholesterol drugs just got a little more tumultuous.
In addition to the existing controversies involving the high cost of the drugs and the fact that their clinical benefit has not yet been demonstrated, it now turns out that in order to afford one of these expensive new drugs some patients will be required to give up their privacy.
Doctors, pharmacists, patients and others are now starting to learn that in order to receive financial assistance from Amgen for its expensive new cholesterol drug Repatha, patients are being required to surrender rights to their personal information, including their personal health information. The information will be freely available, with few restrictions, not only to the company but to unspecified third parties.
Read more on MedPage Today.
CardioBrief has some updates to this story.