MedPAC’s Call to Replace Medicare DSH Formula Could Spill Over into 340B

MedPAC report to the Congress title page
MedPAC this week recommended replacing the Medicare DSH patient adjustment percentage for Medicare hospital payment purposes. The 340B program uses the same calculation as one of its hospital eligibility criteria.

Congressional Medicare advisers yesterday formally recommended replacing the formula Medicare uses to distribute extra payments to safety net hospitals that disproportionately serve low-income and/or uninsured beneficiaries.

The 340B program uses the same calculation—the Medicare disproportionate share adjustment percentage—to determine eligibility

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One-Third of Americans Lack a Source of Primary Care and Health Centers Can Close the Gap, Says Report

Map of United States depicting percentages of medically disenfranchised populations
Almost one-third of Americans lack access to a usual source of primary care, the National Association of Community Health Centers says in a new report.

More than 100 million Americans—almost one-third of the population, and many of them children—lack access to a usual source of primary care due to a shortage of providers in their community, leading to delays in care, poorer health outcomes, and

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Study Raises Questions About Using 340B Claim Modifiers to Implement Medicare Drug Price Negotiation and Inflation Rebate Provisions

IQVIA white paper title page
IQVIA questions whether 340B claims identifiers can be used successfully to implement the Inflation Reduction Act's Medicare drug price negotiation and drug inflation rebate provisions.

New research by drug industry contractor IQVIA questions whether claims identifiers can be used successfully to exclude 340B-purchased drugs from new Medicare drug inflation rebates or to protect manufacturers from paying both a new negotiated Medicare price and a 340B

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More Entities Might Share 340B Contract Pharmacy Claims Data if the Process Improves and Actually Restores 340B Pricing, Survey Shows

laptop screen depicting data upload
More 340B entities would share contract pharmacy claims data with manufacturers if the process was better and got 340B pricing turned back on reliably, a survey by McKesson found.

While most 340B covered entities do not share their contract pharmacy claims data with drug makers to restore access to 340B pricing, many would do so if the process was better and got 340B pricing turned back on reliably, a

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340B Hospital Physician Affiliated with Free-Market Think Tank Says Abolishing 340B Should be on the Table in Health Affairs Essay

Dr. Anthony DiGiorgio headshot
“Consideration could be given to abolishing" the 340B program, Dr. Anthony DiGiorgio of Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center writes in the policy journal Health Affairs. DiGiorgio says he receives funding from a free-market think tank "on Medicaid and access to care issues."

A neurosurgeon at a San Francisco 340B hospital who once was a health policy fellow for U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and who is doing research for a free-market oriented think tank has written a stinging reply to former U.S.

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End 340B, Commentary in New England Journal of Medicine Suggests

Screenshot of commentary on Medicare overpayment for outpatient medication in the NEJM
Policymakers should consider disbanding the 340B program, a student and a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine say in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Policymakers should consider disbanding the 340B program “given its negative reverberations for patients and markets,” a student and a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine wrote in a commentary in the latest edition of the New England Journal

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Hospital Groups and Brand Drug Industry React to Wall Street Journal’s 340B Hospital Investigation

Screenshot of Wall Street Journal 340B investigation article
340B hospitals defended themselves and the program in the wake of a highly critical Wall Street Journal investigation, while the drug industry said the story revealed “abuse that policymakers can no longer ignore.”

Groups that represent 340B hospitals are defending the drug discount program and their role in it in response to a Wall Street Journal article Tuesday that raised questions about how some hospitals qualify for and use the program.

The nation’s

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Private Oncologist Group-Funded Study Models Effects of Using CMS’s Controversial 2020 340B Hospital Drug Cost Survey

Screenshot of Avalere web page
A new study models what would happened in 2023 if Medicare paid 340B hospitals for physician administered drugs based on a survey of those hospitals’ drug acquisition costs taken during the COVID pandemic’s darkest days in 2020.

Private practice oncologists have paid for a study to model what would happened in 2023 if Medicare paid 340B hospitals for physician administered drugs based on a survey of those hospitals’ drug acquisition costs taken during the COVID pandemic’s darkest

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Breaking News

Wall Street Journal Says Its Investigation of 340B Hospitals Raises Questions about Program’s Growth and Purpose

Screenshot of Wall Street Journal article Many Hospitals Get Big Drug Discounts.
The Wall Street Journal's long article today about hospital participation in 340B comes three months after a similar lengthy critique by The New York Times.

A growing number of hospitals that do not qualify for 340B drug discounts as disproportionate share hospitals are enrolling instead under less demanding criteria for rural referral centers—including nationally prominent urban hospitals in metro Boston, Chicago, and Cleveland, The Wall

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340B Hospitals’ Share of Part B Drug Administration Continues Rising, PhRMA-Funded Study Finds

Image of Infusion drip
New drug industry-funded research found that Part B drug administration continues rising at 340B hospitals and falling at other hospitals and physician offices.

Thirty-five percent of drugs paid for by Medicare Part B in 2021 were administered in 340B hospital outpatient departments, up from 19% in 2012, new research funded by brand drug manufacturers shows.

The share of Part B drugs administered in

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