Category: 340B-Aware

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Incoming Administration Has Historic Opportunity to Lower Healthcare Cost and Protect Access

We’re sending this email because you are a leader dedicated to helping financially vulnerable patients access the medical care and prescription medications they need. We at the Consumer Health Advocacy & Information Network (CHAIN) share that mission.

Multiple investigations have documented unprecedented abuse of the Federal 340B prescription discount program (New York Times, JAMA, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, et. al.).

The cost to everyone is great.  But the damage is even greater for the organizations and patients you serve.

Protecting the 340B program means bringing just the most basic transparency to this $66 billion federal program – the second largest prescription drug program in the nation – and stopping the growing 340B abuse that puts community health centers and their patients at risk.  Here’s what stemming the abuse of 340B will mean to you and millions of underserved patients:

  • Billions that are being diverted into profits at hospitals, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and national pharmacy chains would be put back into funding for the community health centers that are the intended providers of 340B care.
     
  • Desperately needed transparency would finally come to a system that has been operating in total “darkness” – so key stakeholders can determine how much charitable care 340B hospitals truly provide – and take the needed steps to ensure underserved patients get the care they need.
  • The growing exodus of pharmacies from underserved areas (creating “pharmacy deserts”) would start to be reversed by ensuring only contract pharmacies that serve 340B qualified patients can participate in the program.
  • 340B reforms would help shine a light on (and possibly stem the abusive practice of) hospitals gobbling up 340B qualified clinics – only to see them siphon off profits, strip care or close the clinics altogether.

CHAIN is engaging with leaders like you to create a movement to protect the 340B program. The first step is creating awareness around the abuse, so that health care leaders coming into office can take the steps needed to reverse the 340B abuse and protect everyone involved in care for the underserved.

Colorado Politics published my opinion piece on Wednesday, Nov 27, 2024.  Read the full letter here:  https://www.coloradopolitics.com/opinion/end-abuse-of-340b-give-consumers-break-with-rx-costs-podium/article_7153c392-ac6a-11ef-96df-8b897500e082.html

If you would like to stay informed and updated on the rapidly changing 340B landscape, please click here:
https://consumerhealthadvocates.net/

We’ll be sending more information in the coming days and weeks. In the meantime, if you’d like to have a personal conversation about this issue, or simply just need further background, please reach out through Joni@ConsumerHealthAdvocates.net.

 
Joni Inman
Executive Director
Consumer Health Advocacy & Information Network

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Dedicated to keeping healthcare costs down for consumers

In the midst of all the political chaos, most people aren’t paying much attention to what’s happening at the federal level to try to keep healthcare costs down for consumers. . . But we are.

This one’s top on our list. In 1992 Congress passed an act creating what is known as the 340B Drug Pricing Program. It was a good move. The program was designed to help vulnerable patients access medications that they might not otherwise be able to afford, by forcing drug manufacturers to provide steep discounts on outpatient medications to what is called “safety net” clinics and hospitals.  It’s still in effect today, with 57 percent of all hospitals, and 46 percent of contract pharmacies in the U.S. participating in the program, including in Colorado, Nevada, Utah and Arizona.
 
The expectation was that savings would be used to ensure vulnerable patients have access to their medications. Not surprisingly, it would appear that the cost savings are now primarily being diverted to middlemen, known as Pharmacy Benefit Managers, to boost their bottom line.
 
According to research by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturer’s Association, the top performing 340B hospitals nationwide collected nearly $10 in total profit for every $1 they invested in charity care.
 
Fortunately, this misdirection of funds has been discovered and Congress is once again looking at how to tighten regulations around the program so that, instead of benefiting an industry, it stays true to its intent, to help less affluent Americans, be able to afford their life-saving medications.
 
CHAIN is monitoring the legislation. Stay tuned. We may need your help in lobbying Congress in the near future.