The Attack 340B Is Well Funded

Is the membership of PHARMA.org made up almost exclusively by companies that sell high priced drugs and devices?

Unless you live under a rock, you can’t miss the add campaign attacking the 340B drug program.  If you “google” 340B on your computer,  folks attacking 340B have made sure through “search engine optimization” that their website will be your first hit.  Please feel free to give it a try as I talk.

The ads are mainly coming from PHARMA.org.  An organization that, in theory, has a mission to “conduct effective advocacy for public policies that encourage the discovery of important, new medicines for patients by biopharmaceutical research companies.”

What are their complaints about the 340B program?

First, they allege that patients are paying more because the savings from 340B discounts is not passed down to the patient.  I would argue that very few patients are paying charges for their services and most of the uninsured end up as bad debts. 

They allege that there is evidence that hospitals abuse the lax definition for the 340B program.  The rules seem very clear and well understood. 

They go on to assert that there are no requirements for how hospitals use drugs purchased through the 340B program.  Having worked on compliance issues for 340B, I can tell you there are requirements, but that is a longer discussion.

On the site they state that “Lack of oversight of the 340B program has allowed for thousands of instances of noncompliance.”  It seems that if this were true, the RACs on ZPICs would be clamping down on the hospitals.  The statement itself is a little misleading in that if one or two hospitals had compliance issues considering the volume of drugs under the 340B program we can get to thousands.

Finally comes what I think the real complaint is.  They allege that “For-profit chains like CVS have flooded the 340B program.”

I guess it would be no surprise that the membership and board of PHARMA.org is made up almost exclusively by companies like Novartis, Amgen and Pfizer that sell high priced drugs and devices.  My question would be, how does a patient benefit if the 340B program is destroyed and patients can’t afford life-saving treatment?   

About the Author: Timothy Powell is a nationally recognized expert on regulatory matters including the False Claims Act, Zone Program Integrity Contractor audits and OIG compliance. He is a member of the RACmonitor editorial board.

Contact the Author: tpowell@tpowellcpa.com