The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) has just issued a must-read report on the 340B Drug Pricing Program: Federal Oversight of Compliance at 340B Contract Pharmacies Needs Improvement.
Some of the report’s most startling revelations confirm our worst fears about how hospitals and pharmacies are abusing the 340B program.
Here are two especially dispiriting findings from the GAO’s analysis:
- 16 out of 28 hospitals (57%!) did not provide discounted drug prices to low-income, uninsured patients who filled prescriptions at the hospital’s 340B contract pharmacy. Seriously?!?
- Many 340B contract pharmacies can earn excessive profit margins of 15% to 20% from brand-name 340B prescriptions. As I have long suspected, large, publicly-traded pharmacies are sharing in the 340B discounts generated for covered entities.
Bottom line: Hospitals and pharmacies are making money from poor people. Are you kidding me?!? For shame!
The 340B program’s apologists will have a hard time rebutting the uncomfortable facts from this GAO report. Calling something a “drug discount program” apparently doesn’t mean that the neediest patients get access to those discounts. Read on, and prepare to be outraged.
P.S. In two upcoming articles about 340B, I’ll review the pharmacies participating in the program and then examine the role of specialty pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers.
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