Tag: Industry Insights

SPONSORED CONTENT

It’s a head-spinning Catch-22: Covered entities have never been more crucial to the well-being of community health—or more challenged to sustain their very existence. They’re dedicated to serving the most vulnerable patient communities in the United States, but constantly find themselves up against threats to the 340B program.

And yet, driven by a resolute commitment to patient care, many covered entities continue to expand their missions in the face of 340B dilemmas.

That’s why if you’re a covered entity looking to sustainably grow your 340B program in today’s ever-changing environment, I hope you’ll join me for an upcoming webinar you don’t want to miss:
Mission Possible: Future-Proofing Your 340B Program. On Tuesday, March 29^th at 2 pm Eastern, we’ll be chatting with Karen Musgrove, CEO of Birmingham AIDS Outreach (BAO), about how her organization scaled its impact while continuing to offer personalized and compassionate community care. We’ll kick PowerPoint slides to the curb and instead engage in a lively discussion

SPONSORED CONTENT

Drastic federal cuts to the 340B program. Alarming changes to Gilead’s Advancing Access Program. If your organization is a federal grantee or health system providing HIV care and/or prevention services, you know there has never been a more important time to future-proof your program—while still offering the highest standards of compassionate care.

What’s more, how entities provide care to their communities is quickly changing. Per CDC guidelines, providers are encouraged to prescribe PrEP to any patient who asks for it, and to have conversations about PrEP with all sexually active adolescent and adult patients. Telehealth is making care more accessible to rural communities, as well as eliminating some of the barriers and fears for patients who don’t feel comfortable in traditional health care settings.

What does all that mean for covered entities? It means the landscape is changing quickly, and there is an urgent need to consider the entire health care journey of all your patients, both those who

SPONSORED CONTENT

Each year, Visante publishes its list of the top 10 issues facing hospital and health system pharmacy. In 2022, many challenges derive from the pandemic but also present opportunities for leaders to implement new solutions that will drive stronger performance in the future.

1. The Pandemic

With a second pandemic winter to deal with, many of the country’s hospitals and other 340B providers need help. Overall, 80+% of hospitals are still struggling with being short-staffed and backlogged from the last wave of COVID-19 as well as challenged financially with increased expenses and decreased revenue. Health centers and other 340B providers have faced many of the same challenges and have played a crucial role in treating our most vulnerable patient populations during this unprecedented time. 340B covered entities are now looking at colder months with a potentially bad influenza season creating a possible “twindemic” situation. Hospitals and other 340B covered entities are looking at a possible “perfect storm” of high demand,

SPONSORED CONTENT

Do you think you know Powers Law?  You may know that Powers has represented 340B safety net hospitals, Ryan White clinics, community health centers as well as state and local governments and retail pharmacies since the 340B program’s inception in 1992.  You may also know that Powers has a strong reputation for compliance work, 340B-related litigation, and building coalitions to advocate effectively for the 340B program.  What you don’t know about us may surprise you.

Bill von Oehsen, JD

• Bill played a key role in helping to enact the 340B program in 1992, as well as to expand the law in 2010 under the Affordable Care Act to include additional safety net hospitals as covered entities and to establish numerous program integrity requirements.
• Bill helped to establish 340B Health, an advocacy organization of more than 1,400 public and private nonprofit hospitals participating in the 340B program. He also helped organize the 340B Coalition, an organization of a dozen national associations

SPONSORED CONTENT

Confucius once said that “roads were made for journeys, not destinations.” Hudson Headwaters has been at the forefront of the 340B journey for 20 years while continuously leveraging field-driven experience to help clients effectively navigate and manage their 340B involvement. Our goal is to prevent the 340B program model from reaching an unexpected destination.

Hudson Headwaters 340B, LLC (a wholly owned subsidiary of Hudson Headwaters Health Network) has pioneered a natural path to compliant management of multiple contract pharmacies from their roots as a team within a participating Covered Entity. Our careful and focused concentration on 340B has made us a well-respected resource for 340B eligible entities as a contract pharmacy third party administrator, independent auditor, consultant, and educator.  We treat each client as if their 340B program is our own, offering the very same confident oversight we provide to our parent organization. 

Today’s 340B challenges from manufacturers make it crucial for entities to have partners who can proactively navigate the changing

SPONSORED CONTENT

The word “innovation” gets tossed around so much these days that we almost forget its meaning—the introduction of new and different ideas for out-of-the-box problem solving that have meaningful impacts. Yet, innovation is different in every industry, and it’s essential in a field as complex as 340B.

To get a handle on it, we sat down with healthcare technology veteran Andrew Stevenson, VP of Product Strategy and Business Development, and 340B industry expert Christy Bryant, VP, Customer Service & Regulatory Affairs at Macro Helix, a third-party administrator that facilitates the 340B programs of more than 900 covered entities as well as hospital-owned and retail pharmacies. Responsible for supporting customer relationships, and driving the execution of critical innovation programs with Macro Helix’s customers, they have valuable insights to share for a 340B community faced with new challenges almost daily.

In a nutshell, what is Macro Helix? How do you help customers succeed with 340B?

Christy Bryant: We help healthcare entities maximize their 340B

SPONSORED CONTENT

While specialty drugs were used by less than 2% of the population in 2020, “they accounted for almost 51% of spending under the pharmacy benefit.”^[1] Within your 340B program, these numbers can be even higher. On average, we see about six percent of volume resulting in close to fifty percent of savings for our clients. With numbers like this, it’s imperative to understand how to manage your 340B specialty contract pharmacies in order to maximize program value.

Below are five strategies to optimize your specialty pharmacy program:

1. Register your “ology’s”

There are six types of eligible clinics within a health system typically driving the majority of specialty value:  dermatology, gastroenterology, rheumatology, endocrinology, neurology, and oncology. Medications dispensed through these clinics have high utilization and yield high savings. Ensuring these clinics are eligible and registered is the first, and most important strategy when capturing specialty value.

2. Set up your ideal specialty network

When developing a specialty network tailored to