Cvs Caremark

Chris Cullum normally gets his prescriptions filled at a CVS Caremark store in San Diego. But, while traveling, he placed orders at a CVS branch in Arizona this year and at a branch in Illinois last year. In both cases, Cullum said, he subsequently received calls from the stores in those states letting him know that refills were ready. Two things make this noteworthy. One: Cullum, like other CVS customers who have related similar experiences, never signed up for the pharmacy's automatic-refill program, ReadyFill.

The U.S. Justice Department's civil fraud division is investigating claims that CVS Caremark wrongly refilled prescriptions and billed insurers without the knowledge or the approval of its customers. The probe will focus primarily on allegations of Medicare fraud, said Shana T. Mintz, an assistant U.S. attorney in the division's Los Angeles office. The investigation also will look into whether CVS violated a $17.5-million settlement reached with federal authorities last year over allegedly falsified claims to Medicaid programs in California and nine other states, Mintz said.

Ivor Davis received a call recently from the Target pharmacy near his home in Ventura. He was informed he could pick up a refill of medication for his wife, Sally, who is battling pancreatic cancer. Davis, 74, told me he and his wife like to be flexible in deciding where and when they purchase her drugs. Sometimes they refill prescriptions during visits to Seattle. Sometimes Davis crosses the border into Canada, where the usual $166 cost for Sally's pills can be cut in half. They never ask any pharmacy to refill an order until they're ready, which is why Target's call came as such a surprise.

Some Longs Drug Stores Corp. shareholders said they would oppose CVS Caremark Corp.'s $2.7-billion offer to buy the company if Longs didn't tell them more about the value of its real estate. CVS Caremark agreed to pay $71.50 a share for Longs to gain more than 500 stores. CVS valued Longs' real estate at about $1 billion. But CtW Investment Group said the price was too low by as much as $260 million, and two major Longs shareholders said they wanted to know more about how the real estate was valued.

It turns out Walgreen Co. and CVS Caremark Corp. need each other after all. After months of contract negotiations, punctuated by a two-week public brawl, the two drugstore giants announced Friday that they had settled a dispute that threatened to prevent thousands of people from filling their prescriptions at Walgreens stores. At issue: the way Caremark, one of the nation's biggest prescription-plan operators, prices discounts for prescriptions filled at Walgreens pharmacies, which often compete fiercely with nearby CVS stores nationwide.

CVS Caremark Corp., the No. 2 U.S. drugstore chain, agreed to buy Universal American's Medicare prescription drug business for about $1.25 billion to expand in a growing segment of the pharmacy benefit market. The deal will more than double the size of CVS Caremark's business that provides prescription drug coverage under the Medicare Part D program. Medicare is the U.S. government's healthcare program for the elderly. Universal American shareholders are expected to receive about $12.80 to $13 per share in cash for the business, which accounted for less than half of the company's total revenue in the first nine months of 2010.

The Climate-Smart Agriculture Conference kicked off Wednesday at UC Davis. It's the first time the event is held in the U.S. after its inauguration at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. The conference brings together scientists and policy makers to identify and shape agriculture practices that address climate change. Times agriculture reporter Ricardo Lopez attended, tweeting updates throughout the first day. Here's a curated Storify post of his tweets and others:  ALSO: Gas prices cut into spring break travel, survey says  Starbucks buys first farm, plans to double loyalty card members Report: CVS Caremark demans workers disclose weight, health info ricardo.lopez2@latimes.com

CVS Caremark is feeling more heat. Join me at 3:15 p.m. PDT for a Google+ Hangout video chat about my latest column on CVS being investigated for allegedly refilling prescriptions and submitting claims to insurers without patients' approval. Another federal investigation has begun. I'll have information on that. Also, we've gotten our hands on more internal documents highlighting instructions given to CVS pharmacists about enrolling people in the company's automatic-refill program.

Rewards programs can be a good thing. They build loyalty and provide a tangible benefit to being a steady customer. That is, if the reward is actually a reward, and not some corporate ploy that goes out of its way to prevent customers from enjoying the perk they've been promised. I'm thinking of the cash-back program at CVS Caremark, one of the country's leading drugstore chains. At first glance, CVS' Extra Bucks system seems pretty appealing. Flash your CVS ExtraCare card at the cash register and you'll earn 2% back on things you buy. You'll also earn one Extra Buck for every two prescriptions you fill.