He was supposed to get a lift from his little blue pills, but a Long Island man instead was left feeling small and deflated after a loose-lipped pharmacist blabbed about his Viagra to his wife, a lawsuit claims.
Michael Feinberg brought a prescription for eight 100-milligram pills of the erectile-dysfunction drug, with five refills, last year into the Merrick Road CVS with specific instructions: he’d pay for the medicine himself, according to the suit he filed against the pharmacy chain.
After explaining to a CVS employee, identified in court papers as “Aurula,” that the Viagra, which can cost more than $60 a pill, was not to be put through his insurance, Feinberg left.
But a few days later, all hell broke loose when his wife called the pharmacy to check on one of her own prescriptions, and a chatty worker began talking about Feinberg’s blue bombers, he claims in court papers.
Now, Feinberg says, his “marriage has broken down.”
The court papers do not say exactly why the revelation drove a wedge between the couple.
The hubby claims CVS violated his privacy under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal law that requires a patient’s permission before revealing their “confidential protected healthcare information.”
The employee “without solicitation, improperly informed [Feinberg’s] wife that [Feinberg’s] ‘prescription for Viagra was not being covered by insurance,’” he alleges in the Nassau Supreme Court lawsuit.
Feinberg calls his wife a “third-party” who had no right to know about the drug.
He’s accusing CVS of negligence and seeking unspecified damages for what he describes as “genuine, severe mental injury and emotional harm.”
CVS places “the highest priority on protecting the privacy of those we serve,” spokesman Gary Serby said.
The U.S. Health and Human Services Department, which oversees HIPAA enforcement, says it expects to receive 17,000 complaints this year over privacy violations under the federal law.