WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS/pharmacy is launching what it describes as a first-of-its-kind service to help customers manage their monthly health insurance premiums.

Bill Pay at CVS/pharmacy gives members of participating health plans the opportunity to bring their insurance bills to any of the drug chain’s 7,600 stores to pay their premiums at no additional cost.

“Millions of Americans have enrolled in health insurance this year for the first time, and we want to help with this transition by providing an easy way to pay their premiums in our stores,” said Josh Flum, senior vice president of retail pharmacy at CVS Caremark Corp.
“Providing customers with this level of unprecedented access to manage their insurance premiums is part of our commitment to delivering innovative solutions to help people on their path to better health.”

CVS/pharmacy has partnered with InComm to facilitate bill payments at all cash registers in the pharmacy and at the front checkout. Members of health plans that participate in Bill Pay at CVS/pharmacy will receive their monthly premium bills featuring a customer-specific barcode, with instructions on how it may be used to pay their premium. CVS will scan the barcode and collect the member’s desired payment, which may be made using cash, credit card or debit card.

The company said it also accepts insurance bill payments from members of health plans that are enrolled in MoneyGram’s bill payment service.

Insurers have reported that most people who enrolled in plans under the Affordable Care Act have paid their initial premiums. Insurance companies have been doing everything in their power to get enrollees to pay their bills, said Mark Pratt, a senior vice president at America’s Health Insurance Plans.

Aetna reported that as of the third week of April, about 83% of the company’s 600,000 enrolles had paid up. Health Care Service Corp., which offers Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, reported an 85% payment rate, while WellPoint expressed satisfaction with the payment rates for plans it sold on 14 state exchanges.