HealthBlawg

David Harlow's Health Care Law Blog

    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS
    • Email
  • About
  • Archives
  • Podcast
  • Press
  • Awards/Reviews
  • HIPAA
  • HCSM

The 340B Saga Continues

May 8, 2019

This week, a federal court found the administration’s 340B program rates to be fatally flawed; the HHS Secretary “patently violated” the governing law.

The 340B program is designed to support critical access hospitals and other safety-net providers by providing targeted subsidies for their outpatient prescription drug costs; an administration rule appealed by industry associations would have cut this support by about 30% from 2017 levels. As described by the court, the agency elected to adjust 340B rates “based not on the drugs’ average sale prices — as dictated by the statutory text — but on the drugs’ estimated acquisition costs.”

This ruling applies to the 2019 rates, much as a previous ruling reached the same conclusion with respect to the 2018 rates. The court has ordered the agency back to the drawing board for both years, and “expects HHS to resolve this issue promptly,” ordering the parties to provide a status report in three months’ time. The court said it was a very close call, but decided to stop short of invalidating the rules entirely — noting that vacating two years’ Medicare reimbursement rules could wreak havoc on administering Medicare, especially since budget-neutrality laws likely mean that any increase in 340B payments would have to be offset by reductions in other Medicare payments. Re-setting other payment levels, recouping payments from other providers, and recalculating patient-pay amounts would be an administrative nightmare. (It may be interesting to explore further whether the budget-neutrality rules would necessarily apply in the case of a court-ordered revision to a single reimbursement rule.)

The 340B program is just one example of the myriad ways in which the federal government helps underwrite the delivery of health care services by safety-net providers. The program has been examined from every angle over the years, and there are numerous bills, congressional committee hearings and GAO reports that have looked at improvements that may be needed in order to ensure that the program does what it is supposed to do.

Here’s hoping that the federales can continue to invest effectively in addressing both the healthcare needs of those served by safety-net providers and the social determinants of health that may help reduce the need for healthcare services.

David Harlow
The Harlow Group LLC
Health Care Law and Consulting

Filed Under: Health care policy, Health Law, HHS, Hospitals, Rural health

you might also like:

  1. Premier HQID demo continues to show promise

  2. Sustainable Growth Rate: an unsustainable saga

  3. Hospital Chargemasters and Open Data from CMS — The conversation continues

« HIPAA News from OCR: FAQs and Fines
Talking Artificial Intelligence with SAP – Harlow on Healthcare »

Trackbacks

  1. The 340B Saga Continues - HITECH Answers: HIPAA, MIPS, EHR, Cybersecurity News says:
    May 21, 2019 at 8:11 am

    […] article was originally published onย HealthBlawgย and is republished here with […]

Follow me on Twitter

David Harlow ๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿ˜ท Follow 42,881 17,567

Mastodon @healthblawg@c.im #HealthCare #MedDevice #Compliance #Privacy @MyOmnipod #HIPAA #digitalhealth #HarlowOnHC #pinksocks Tweets are tweets No more no less

healthblawg
healthblawg avatar; David Harlow ๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿ˜ท @healthblawg ·
16m 1618728026862149632

ICYMI> Dan Greenleaf, CEO of Modivcare on Digital Tools with a Human Touch โ€” Harlow on Healthcare https://healthblawg.com/2022/01/dan-greenleaf-modivcare.html?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ReviveOldPost #digitalhealth #hcldr #hitsm

Image for the Tweet beginning: ICYMI>  Dan Greenleaf, CEO Twitter feed image.
Reply on Twitter 1618728026862149632 Retweet on Twitter 1618728026862149632 0 Like on Twitter 1618728026862149632 0 Twitter 1618728026862149632
healthblawg avatar; David Harlow ๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿ˜ท @healthblawg ·
33m 1618723806939340806

The Harlow #Healthcare #Innovation Daily https://paper.li/healthblawg/1489156253?share_id=103fa990-9dc1-11ed-ad57-fa163e65ae25 #digitalhealth #hcldr #HarlowOnHC Thanks to @MailMyStatement @NovaBACKUP #digitalhealth #healthtech

Reply on Twitter 1618723806939340806 Retweet on Twitter 1618723806939340806 0 Like on Twitter 1618723806939340806 0 Twitter 1618723806939340806
healthblawg avatar; David Harlow ๐Ÿ’‰๐Ÿ˜ท @healthblawg ·
7h 1618627492033531906

The latest Harlow On Health Care Daily #HarlowOnHC #digitalhealth #healthcare #innovation #privacy #hcldr Thx: @EricTopol @raeannephd @MobiHealthNews #digitalhealth #healthtech

Image for twitter card

It's time for banks to get more intelligent about artificial intelligence

americanbanker.com Artificial intelligence now has the potential to fundamentally change customers' relationships with banks...

paper.li

Reply on Twitter 1618627492033531906 Retweet on Twitter 1618627492033531906 0 Like on Twitter 1618627492033531906 0 Twitter 1618627492033531906
Load More
Follow me on Mastodon

HIPAAtools

Hipaatools

The HIPAA Compliance Toolkit

The Walking Gallery

The Walking Gallery

Quick Links

  • Home
  • Categories
  • Archives
  • Podcast Interviews
  • HIPAAtools
  • HIPAA Compliance
  • Health Care Social Media
  • Speaking
  • In the Press
  • Blogroll

David Harlow

David Harlow

HealthcareNOW Radio

Connect with David

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Email
  • Subscribe
  • Contact
  • Book Me: Speaking
  • About
  • The Harlow Group LLC
Copyright © 2006–2023
HealthBlawg is a publication of The Harlow Group LLC. See Copyright notice and disclaimer.
Fair use with attribution and a link is encouraged. Click for more on David Harlow.
[footer_backtotop text="Back to top" href="#"]
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok