Our opioid response

CVS Health has made a commitment to help address the misuse of prescription opioids by designing programs and collaborating with community leaders, policymakers, law enforcement, health care professionals and others to increase community-based educational programs related to opioid misuse, create safe prescription drug disposal sites, expand access to life-saving antidotes and advocate for targeted and effective policies, locally and nationally.

Our comprehensive enterprise approach includes:

• Safe medication disposal units installed in more than 2,800 CVS Pharmacy locations nationwide

• Donated over 1,000 safe medication disposal units to local police departments across the country

• Pharmacist counseling for patients filling their first opioid prescription

• Enhanced utilization management for our CVS Caremark clients

• Community investments to support addiction recovery and prevention

• Opioid misuse prevention education for teens and parents

• Access to and advocacy for opioid-overdose reversal medication

• Ongoing advocacy to promote prescription drug monitoring programs, prescription limitations, and e-prescribing

• Board-level oversight of our opioid-related safety, programs and initiatives

Aetna has also employed a comprehensive strategy to fight opioid misuse, with the goal in 2020 to drastically reduce overprescribing and misuse.

Aetna’s strategic programs focus on prevention, intervention and support for treatment, including ‘super-prescriber’ interventions to physicians, surgeons and dentists with outlying opioid prescribing habits; Aetna Pharmacy’s Controlled Substance Use programs that identify and intervene with at-risk members; and the Guardian Angel pilot program to identify and outreach to members who recently experienced an opioid-related overdose.

Our ongoing opioid misuse prevention efforts and enterprise initiatives are supported by all parts of the company — including our CVS Pharmacy retail presence in nearly 10,000 communities across the country, CVS Caremark, our PBM that manages medications for more than 100 million plan members — and reach patients, providers, payors, advocacy organizations, elected leaders and community health advocates.

Working in collaboration with these health care stakeholders, CVS Health is committed to helping to address opioid misuse.