On Thursday a case was filed in the Central District of California by a patient and his minor child against Express Scripts Inc., Accredo Health Group Inc., and the National Recovery Agency. The case was regarding violations of the Fair Debt Practices Act regarding pharmacy billing.
The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and the California Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (CRFDCPA) were enacted to curtail certain abusive practices in collecting debt from individual consumers. The plaintiff and his minor child were on medications that had a larger copay and were properly enrolled in a co-pay assist program through the manufacturer that is intended to defray the costs of these higher copays.
The plaintiff alleges that the defendants were supposed to bill the copay assist program after processing the claim through health insurance to obtain proper payment from the copay assist program. Instead, the plaintiff states that the defendants called to harass for the payment of the copays directly and refused to send an emergency dose for the minor child resulting in an increased amount of seizures and inflammation. Plaintiff also argues that his family was forced to move in with family in order to save for direct payment of the copays due to defendants failure to properly bill the medication assist program.
Plaintiff is suing for violations of CRFDCPA, FDCPA, negligent infliction of emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence. The plaintiff is represented by the Cardoza Law Corporation.
