AHA, Lawmakers Defend 340B Drug Discount Program

Hospitals use the 340B drug discount program to expand care and increase patients' access to medication, not to abuse the system for more profits, the American Hospital Association wrote in a letter to The Wall Street Journal.

AHA Executive Vice President Rick Pollack wrote the letter in response to an opinion piece written by Scott Gottlieb, MD, which The Wall Street Journal posted last week. Dr. Gottlieb wrote that hospitals are buying drugs at a discount through the program, charging insurers the full price and then pocketing the difference.

The 340B program allows nonprofit hospitals, community health centers, hemophilia treatment centers, HIV/AIDS clinics and other similar facilities that serve a large proportion of under- or uninsured patients to purchase medications from manufacturers at reduced prices.

The PPACA expands the program to include providers such as critical access hospitals, freestanding non-prospective payment system cancer hospitals, sole community hospitals, certain non-PPS children's hospitals and rural referral centers with disproportionate share adjustments equal to or greater than 8 percent.

The hospitals that qualify for the program care for a large amount of uninsured and low-income patients, as well as Medicaid beneficiaries, Mr. Pollack wrote. He said without it, the most vulnerable patients' access to care would be jeopardized.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group including 84 U.S. representatives and 29 senators sent letters Friday backed by the AHA asking the House of Representatives and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to continue supporting the 340B program. The lawmakers wrote the program has saved federal and state governments billions in prescription drug spending and has increased access to medication for vulnerable patients.

Dr. Gottlieb is far from the first to criticize the program. Earlier this year, a collection of pharmaceutical and biotechnology associations released a white paper that raised concerns about the program leading to harmful consequences for patients. In response, the group Safety Net Hospitals for Pharmaceutical Access released a July report "to set the record straight" after continued allegations of misuse of the 340B program for hospital profit.  

More Articles on the 340B Drug Discount Program:
HRSA Issues Final Rule on 340B Drug Discount Program Exclusion 
340B Drug Discount Program Advocates: "This Program Works" 
Safety Net Hospital Group Defends Members' 340B Program Operations