Dem Senate Report Raises Alarm on ‘Significant’ Mail Order Prescription Drug Delays Under Louis DeJoy’s Watch

An investigative report from Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Robert P. Casey (PA) accuses Postmaster General Louis DeJoy of endangering Americans who rely on the Postal Service to help them get their prescription medicines during the coronavirus pandemic.

In their report, Warren and Casey say they contacted five pharmaceutical companies and sought information about how their mail-order prescription drug systems performed throughout the summer. The report explains that the Covid-19 pandemic caused an increased demand for the timely USPS delivery of medications, but “there have been significant and increasing delays” throughout the last few months.

From the Executive Summary:

All of the mail-order pharmacies that are heavily reliant on USPS for delivery of mail-order drugs reported an increase in average delivery times, ranging from 18-32%. In general, this meant that deliveries that would typically take 2-3 days were instead taking 3-4 days. Some delays appear to be even longer. One company reported that “we saw a marked increase in July in the number of patients experiencing shipment delays of seven days or more,” and another reported that “the number of orders taking over five days to deliver has risen dramatically since the onset of the pandemic.” A representative of a pharmacy industry organization informed Sens. Warren and Casey that one of its members had observed delays in delivery times of 49% for USPS prescription deliveries. Only one of the respondents reported that they were “not experiencing any unusual delays in deliveries” — but this company reported that they were more reliant on private-sector carriers than on USPS.

While some of the delivery delays seem to have started before DeJoy officially became postmaster general, the report argues that DeJoy’s Postal Service policy changes — combined with the challenges of the pandemic — have caused “significant delivery delays” that endanger people waiting for their mail-order drugs.

The report continues to slam DeJoy for saying his policies “should not have impacted anybody” during his testimony before Congress, and Washington Post reports that Warren and Casey told the USPS board that “failure to fix the service delays caused by Postmaster General DeJoy represent an ongoing public health threat and a dereliction of your responsibility to the American public.”

Watch above, via MSNBC.