Structured Negotiation Helps Parties Improve CVS Kiosk Accessibility Strategy used by CVS and National Federation of the Blind after a filed lawsuit

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This is an article about check-in kiosks in Minute Clinics inside CVS pharmacies that did not work for blind people. A lawsuit was filed because the kiosks were not accessible. The National Federation of the Blind got involved in the lawsuit. When that happened, everyone decided to work together to try to resolve the case. They used the Structured Negotiation process and the case was settled. CVS agreed to remove the kiosks over the next eighteen months. Any technology that replaces them will work for blind people and not sacrifice privacy or independence. The settlement is one of many that CVS has reached in Structured Negotiation. CVS also worked with the blind community on its SpokenRx talking prescription label program.

section of CVS store marked minute clinic in big red letters

Congratulations CVS and the National Federation of the Blind for reaching agreement to improve kiosk accessibility at Minute Clinics in CVS stores. The agreement was reached with the help of the Structured Negotiation process.

Structured Negotiation is a collaborative process that helps people and organizations avoid the expense, time, and stress of litigation to focus on real problem solving. Structured Negotiation began more than two decades ago as a method to help avoid lawsuits entirely, and is still used that way, especially to advance accessibility.

But as explained in the second edition of my book about Structured Negotiation, the strategy can also be used to help parties cooperate to resolve claims and advance accessibility even after a lawsuit is filed. That is what happened in the recent settlement described in this article. It is a settlement that will improve check-in kiosk accessibility for blind CVS customers in CVS stores across the United States.

The kiosk settlement is not the first time CVS has partnered with the blind community in Structured Negotiation to advance accessibility. CVS’ innovative Spoken Rx service was the first (and still is the only) prescription label reader in the country to offer talking prescription labels directly from a national pharmacy’s mobile app.

The Spoken Rx initiative was worked on in Structured Negotiation with the American Council of the Blind, one of several successful collaborations ACB has had with CVS over the past fifteen years. (Read the 2021 ACB and CVS press release announcing Spoken Rx.)

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MinuteClinic kiosk settlement

On May 16, 2024 the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) announced that it had resolved a lawsuit challenging inaccessible check-in kiosks at the medical clinics called “MinuteClinics” located inside CVS Pharmacies. MinuteClinic is a subsidiary of CVS.

After the lawsuit was filed, CVS and NFB used Structured Negotiation to resolve the case that was originally filed by one blind CVS customer. The settlement agreement notes that even before NFB was officially added as a plaintiff to the lawsuit, CVS and the parties:

entered into a Structured Negotiations Agreement with the objective of ensuring that MinuteClinic services are accessible to individuals who are blind or have visual impairments, particularly with respect to the kiosks. CVS accessible kiosk agreement

A Structured Negotiations Agreement, as explained in Lainey’s book, establishes ground rules for the collaboration.

Under the parties’ agreement, the MinuteClinic inaccessible kiosks will be phased out over an 18 month period. Any replacement technology will “afford blind individuals an opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a sighted individual in an equally effective, equally private and independent, and equally integrated manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use.”

NFB President Mark Riccobono praised the CVS’ actions in resolving the litigation through collaboration:

We commend MinuteClinic for deciding to leverage the expertise and lived experience of blind Americans by collaborating with us on an accessible solution for all patients. We look forward to working with the company towards a more accessible and inclusive patient experience that serves as a model for the healthcare industry and beyond. NFB President Mark Riccobono

The United States still does not have technical specifications for kiosk accessibility. I wrote about the efforts to enact such regulations — efforts that have been going on since at least 2010 — in this article: New regulations for kiosks and self-service transaction machines? We’ve been here before.

This most recent CVS settlement is yet another reminder that accessible technology is essential to disability inclusion and essential to privacy and security, even in the absence of technical regulations. I’ve added this article to my ongoing list of legal advocacy expanding kiosk access happening even without regulations. My evergreen list includes both collaborations and lawsuits that have resulted in accessible kiosks in healthcare, food service, education, government, and more.

Resources about the CVS kiosk case