{"id":845,"date":"2021-12-02T16:35:49","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T20:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/?p=845"},"modified":"2021-12-02T16:35:49","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T20:35:49","slug":"tcpa-ruling-health-insurance-update-fax-is-not-a-tcpa-advertisement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/2021\/12\/02\/tcpa-ruling-health-insurance-update-fax-is-not-a-tcpa-advertisement\/","title":{"rendered":"TCPA Ruling: Health Insurance \u201cUpdate\u201d Fax Is Not A TCPA Advertisement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.duanemorris.com\/attorneys\/sheilarafterywiggins.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sheila Raftery Wiggins<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A federal court ruled that a fax sent by a pharmacy benefit manager (\u201cPBM\u201d) to healthcare providers notifying recipients of changes to insured parties\u2019 coverage for prescriptions \u2013 the fax mentioned the PBM\u2019s business but did not promote any products or services \u2013 did not constitute an \u201cadvertisement\u201d under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, 47 U.S.C. \u00a7 227 (\u201cTCPA\u201d).\u00a0 The court applied the \u201ccommercial nature\u201d test for a TCPA advertisement.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>CaremarkPCS Health, LLC, a PBM which manages prescription drug benefits for health insurers (\u201cCaremark\u201d), sent an unsolicited fax to more than 55,000 health care providers notifying them of new supply limits on coverage for opioid prescriptions for certain patients covered by plans sponsored by Caremark clients.<\/p>\n<p>A health care provider sued Caremark asserting that the unsolicited fax was an unsolicited advertisement under the TCPA because: (1) the fax referred to services provided by Caremark and (2) Caremark may gain an economic benefit as a result of sending the fax.<\/p>\n<p>The court rejected these arguments.\u00a0 First, the court found that the fax\u2019s statement about Caremark\u2019s services was informational.\u00a0 Second, the court stated that merely because Caremark may obtain a remote economic benefit in the future does not convert a noncommercial, informational communication into a commercial solicitation.\u00a0 The court looked at the \u201cprimary purpose\u201d of the fax as being informational, not promotional.\u00a0 The court also looked at the nature of Caremark\u2019s business when determining the purpose of the fax.\u00a0 <em>BPP v. CaremarkPCS Health, LLC<\/em>, No. 4:20-cv-126, 2021 WL 5195785 (E.D. Mo. Nov. 9, 2021).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lesson<\/strong>:\u00a0 The intent of the message in the fax \u2013 informational and not promotional \u2013 should be clear in order to avoid the communication being an \u201cadvertisement\u201d under the TCPA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sheila Raftery Wiggins A federal court ruled that a fax sent by a pharmacy benefit manager (\u201cPBM\u201d) to healthcare providers notifying recipients of changes to insured parties\u2019 coverage for prescriptions \u2013 the fax mentioned the PBM\u2019s business but did not promote any products or services \u2013 did not constitute an \u201cadvertisement\u201d under the Telephone &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/2021\/12\/02\/tcpa-ruling-health-insurance-update-fax-is-not-a-tcpa-advertisement\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;TCPA Ruling: Health Insurance \u201cUpdate\u201d Fax Is Not A TCPA Advertisement&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[972,257,971,957],"ppma_author":[878],"class_list":["post-845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infotechtelecom","tag-advertisement","tag-fax","tag-sheila-raftery-wiggins","tag-tcpa"],"authors":[{"term_id":878,"user_id":6,"is_guest":0,"slug":"duanemorris3","display_name":"Duane Morris","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/843ff6e7a8fe5fc92109b47a45f34b6cf0ea499e6e788db23456c838b0ae6747?s=96&d=blank&r=g","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.duanemorris.com\/techlaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}