340B Hospital Group Responds to Misleading Report from Big Pharma
For Immediate Release
Tuesday March 25, 2014
Contact: Randy Barrett
202-536-2285/703-405-6230
randy.barrett@340bhealth.org
340B Hospital Group Responds to Misleading Report from Big Pharma
In its continued public relations campaign to discredit the 340B drug discount program, the pharmaceutical industry has financed another study that intentionally misrepresents its purpose. This report goes a step further by suggesting that many hospitals don’t deserve to be in the program based on a narrow and misleading interpretation of care to needy patients.
- The 340B program has lived up to congressional expectations, which is why Congress chose to add several new categories of hospitals to its ranks under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
- Congress was clear when it established the program that eligible hospitals must serve a disproportionately high percentage of Medicaid patients, low-income seniors or be located in remote rural areas. Congress allows these hospitals to advance the real purpose of the program: to stretch their limited resources so that they are less dependent on taxpayers dollars.
- The report is based on unreliable estimates of charity care that even the government refuses to use to determine uncompensated hospital expenses. In addition, hospitals are significantly underpaid by Medicaid, a fact completely omitted from the analysis.
- The average 340B hospital provides three times more uncompensated care than non-340B hospitals.
- Private oncology practices refer their Medicare, Medicaid and uninsured patients to hospitals.
- The 340B program represents only 2 percent of the $325 billion U.S. pharmaceutical market.
From the most urban areas to the most remote parts of our country, 340B is enabling patients to access affordable medication and other critical health care services.
“We treat many underserved patients in Detroit and the surrounding communities of southeast Michigan,” says Robert Chapman, M.D., Director of the Josephine Ford Cancer Institute at the Henry Ford Health System. “We provide $233 million in charity care and uncompensated care each year,” says Chapman. “Savings achieved through 340B are critically important in helping us offset these shortfalls and allowing us to continue to serve these patients.”
340B Health is an association of more than 1,000 hospitals with a mission to increase the affordability and accessibility of pharmaceutical care for the nation's poor and underserved populations. For more information about 340B Health and the 340B program, visit www.340bhealth.org