Groups that represent 340B hospitals yesterday asked a federal district judge in Washington, D.C., to immediately halt a nearly 30% Medicare Part B payment cut in place since 2018 for hospitals’ 340B-purchased drugs.
American Hospital Association, America’s Essential Hospitals, Association of American Medical Colleges, and three health systems with hospitals enrolled in 340B asked the judge to order the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) “to promptly correct [its] past underpayments to plaintiffs and their members for 2018–2022” plus interest “without seeking to recoup funds from other hospitals.”
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s unanimous June decision that the payment cuts for 2018 and 2019 were unlawful, “there is only one available remedy: repaying those hospitals that were unlawfully underpaid, from 2018 to the present,” the hospital groups and health systems said.
“Fairness dictates that the government not penalize other hospitals—which have long spent the funds that the government may seek to recoup—for [HHS’s] own mistakes,” the groups and health systems said.
The groups and health systems yesterday also asked the judge to expedite consideration of the several motions they filed in their lawsuit on Aug. 3.
“Plaintiffs ask that defendants be ordered to file a response to the motion [to expedite proceedings] within seven days, that plaintiffs be required to file any reply brief within three days thereafter, and that the court expedite consideration of the motion,” the groups and health systems.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras, who ruled in the hospitals’ favor in 2019, this morning gave HHS until tomorrow to respond to the motion to expedite.
