Ron Chapman Wins Federal Injunction Against CVS for Kentucky Pain Physician
Court Orders CVS to Resume Filling Dr. Kendall Hansen’s Prescriptions
When CVS Pharmacy imposed a categorical block on prescriptions written by Kentucky interventional pain physician Dr. Kendall Hansen, Ron Chapman took the pharmacy chain to federal court—and won emergency relief protecting Hansen’s practice and his patients’ access to medication.
The case, Hansen v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., No. 2:21-cv-00092, was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky on behalf of Hansen and his practice, Interventional Pain Specialists, PLC.
CVS Blocks Every Prescription Written by Dr. Hansen
Hansen operated an interventional pain-management practice serving patients throughout Northern Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana. Some of his patients were prescribed controlled substances as part of their treatment, but his practice also issued prescriptions for non-controlled medications.
In June 2021, CVS contacted Hansen with questions about his prescribing activity. According to the subsequent litigation, CVS did not identify evidence that his prescriptions lacked a medical purpose or violated the law. Nevertheless, CVS informed Hansen in late July that its Northern Kentucky pharmacies would no longer fill prescriptions written by him.
The restriction was not limited to opioids or other controlled substances. It reportedly applied to all prescriptions bearing Hansen’s name and affected approximately 250 to 300 patients who depended on CVS pharmacies for access to their medication.
CVS explained that Hansen had been identified through its prescriber-monitoring system based largely on the volume of controlled-substance prescriptions associated with his practice. The defense challenged the use of that data as a substitute for an individualized assessment of whether Hansen’s prescriptions were legitimate and medically appropriate.
Ron Chapman Files Suit and Seeks Immediate Relief
On August 4, 2021, Ron Chapman filed suit against CVS on behalf of Hansen and Interventional Pain Specialists. The complaint alleged that CVS had interfered with Hansen’s patient and business relationships and had damaged his professional reputation by creating the impression that his prescriptions were illegitimate. The claims included tortious interference and defamation per se.
The lawsuit also sought immediate injunctive relief. Waiting months for conventional civil litigation to unfold would offer little protection to patients suddenly unable to obtain medication or to a physician whose professional relationships were being disrupted in real time.
Ron Chapman argued that CVS should not be permitted to impose a systemwide prescriber block based on prescription volume and the existence of regulatory scrutiny without evidence that Hansen had violated the law.
Federal Judge Orders CVS to Resume Filling Prescriptions
On August 11, 2021, United States District Judge William O. Bertelsman granted emergency relief in Hansen’s favor and required CVS to resume filling his prescriptions.
The court concluded that Hansen had demonstrated a likelihood of success on his claim that CVS improperly interfered with his patient relationships. The judge was also concerned about the consequences of abruptly denying medication access to hundreds of patients and questioned the breadth of a policy that rejected controlled and non-controlled prescriptions alike.
The ruling did not prevent individual pharmacists from exercising the professional judgment required by law when evaluating a particular prescription. It stopped CVS from enforcing a categorical corporate prohibition against every prescription written by Hansen without sufficient evidence that he had prescribed unlawfully.
The court’s order drew attention throughout the healthcare industry. Becker’s ASC Review reported that the judge sided with Hansen and ordered CVS to resume filling his prescriptions. Healthcare law firm Bass, Berry & Sims later published a detailed analysis titled “Kentucky Federal Court Temporarily Bars CVS from Imposing Block on Interventional Pain Doctor’s Prescriptions”.
The federal docket is available through PACER Monitor’s public case page for Hansen v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc..
Why the CVS Decision Matters
Pharmacies have an independent legal responsibility to determine whether a controlled-substance prescription was issued for a legitimate medical purpose. That responsibility is essential to patient safety. It does not, however, give a national pharmacy chain unlimited authority to destroy physician-patient relationships through an unexplained or overbroad corporate blacklist.
The Hansen case demonstrated the dangers of relying on prescription volume and algorithmic monitoring without adequately considering the nature of a physician’s specialty, the medical needs of the patients, or the legitimacy of individual prescriptions.
For physicians, removal from a major pharmacy network can cause immediate reputational and financial damage. For patients—particularly those suffering from chronic pain—the same decision can abruptly interrupt established treatment and force them to search for another pharmacy while managing serious medical conditions.
Ron Chapman’s rapid filing and successful request for injunctive relief prevented CVS’s internal decision from becoming an irreversible professional and patient-care crisis.
The CVS litigation was one part of Ron Chapman’s broader defense of Hansen. Ron Chapman subsequently represented him at a month-long federal criminal trial and obtained acquittals on the controlled-substance charges. Read about Dr. Hansen’s federal trial acquittal.
Past results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome. Every case depends upon its individual facts and circumstances.