Patients who rely on the U.S. Postal Service for their prescription drugs may have experienced "significant" delays in their deliveries, according to a Senate report released Wednesday, which accused Postmaster General Louis DeJoy of jeopardizing the "health of millions of Americans."
Several major pharmacies told the two lawmakers leading the investigation -- Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Robert Casey Jr., D-Pa. -- that average delivery times have ticked up since the spring, leading to a flood of angry calls from customers and costly requests to resend their medications.
Warren and Casey did not identify the pharmacies, but their report was issued nearly three weeks after they asked Walgreen, CVS, and other pharmacies and benefit managers to detail the effects of DeJoy's changes at the Postal Service. This summer, he implemented policies to reduce overtime and mail trips, which postal carriers say have led to backlogs nationwide.
Four prescription-drug providers told Warren and Casey that delivery times this summer have increased by half a day or more, on average, compared with earlier this year or similar time frames in 2019, according to the Senate report, which was provided early to The Washington Post. Deliveries that might typically take two or three days were instead taking three to four, the lawmakers said, and one pharmacy in particular saw a "marked increase" in the number of shipping delays of seven or more days.
"These delays are unacceptable outcomes under any circumstances, but are made even worse by the ongoing pandemic, which has increased demand for mail-order drugs as many Americans are affected by stay-at-home orders or choose to stay at home in order to remain safe," the senators wrote in a letter to the Postal Service's board of governors.
The medicine delays, in some cases, appear to have started around May, when DeJoy had been tapped for the job but before he officially took the reins. The timeline raises the possibility that the coronavirus pandemic may have contributed to slowdowns for mailed prescription drugs, particularly as patients put new strain on the system by shifting away from in-person pickup to delivery.
"Our workforce, like many others, have been impacted by the covid-19 crisis, which has resulted in certain service disruptions," Postal Service spokesman David Partenheimer said in a statement. He added that the agency is "aggressively working to ensure full service coverage across the network," and touted recent performance data that showed improvements in mail delivery.
But Warren and Casey still put much of the blame on DeJoy, pointing to his earlier contention that the new agency practices "should not have impacted anybody." Investigators noted that their inquiry showed that only one of the pharmacies contacted had experienced no significant disruption during the summer, and that the provider said it did not rely extensively on the Postal Service. The company is not named in the report, but Walgreen said in a separate statement that only an "extremely small percentage" of its prescriptions are handled by the Postal Service.
Warren and Casey urged the Postal Service board to take immediate action, stressing that its "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." Warren added in a statement that DeJoy should resign or be fired.
The Senate Democrats' findings threaten to add to the headaches already facing DeJoy, whose changes to the mail service in the name of austerity have evoked widespread suspicion and condemnation. On Monday, top House Democrats opened their own investigation, focusing on reports that DeJoy urged employees at his former business to donate to GOP candidates, then boosted their pay. Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Reform Committee have raised the possibility that DeJoy misled them under oath.