340B Head Jimmy Mitchell Retiring This Year
by admin | January 29, 2010 6:13 pm
January 29, 2010 – Jimmy Mitchell is not leaving the post he’s held at the Office of Pharmacy Affairs for the past decade easily. His agency and the rapidly growing drug discount program it oversees is, in this public health veteran’s own words, “the most exciting place to work anywhere.”
But late this month, Mitchell announced in an e-mail addressed to “friends, colleagues and associates” that the rumors of his retirement were, indeed, true. Mitchell plans to step down this summer or fall when his replacement has been hired and become familiarized with the ins and outs of the Office of Pharmacy Affairs (OPA) director’s job. Mitchell will serve as senior advisor and acting director until the transition has been completed.
At 68 and after 40-plus years in public health, Mitchell has decided to spend more time with his family. A growing cyst on his kidney is requiring surgery and treatment that will take time away from the job. His illness has also prompted Mitchell and his wife of 43 years, Chambliss, to seek more time together and with their growing flock of grandchildren. They have six already and a seventh on the way.
“I really don’t have any other plans to work, other than to take care of my health problems and enjoying the most wonderful family in the world,” Mitchell said.
In his e-mail he described the change that followed his diagnosis in early December. “Medical appointments have taken an inordinate amount of time that would ordinarily have been spent carrying out my responsibilities at (work),” he wrote. “These responsibilities are also expected to grow significantly in the next year. I realized that for the good of this program that I dearly love, I needed to step aside and begin to assist in the recruitment of my replacement.”
Mitchell became advocate for nation’s safety net
Mitchell had barely retired from 31 years of service with the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps when he was tapped in 1997 to temporarily join what was then the Office of Drug Pricing. The position of director at the office had been vacated and Mitchell was asked to help out until a replacement had been found.
Mitchell fell in love with the agency’s 340B drug discount program, still in its infancy, and saw the potential that it held for the nation’s struggling safety-net hospitals and clinics. He soon proposed a name change for the agency that would reflect the pharmacy business central to the program, as well as changes to the way the discounts were delivered to participants in the program.
Already immersed in 340B matters, Mitchell was an obvious pick when he decided to apply for the director’s job. He was hired in 1999.
He’s most proud of the growth the program has enjoyed over the past decade. Enrollment continues to expand by nearly 5 percent annually, and there are now 14,500 clinics, hospitals and federal health programs participating along with dozens of manufacturers.
Mitchell has also been credited with leading the effort to develop the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Prime Vendor Program (PVP) and Pharmacy Services Support Center (PSSC), the government contractors responsible for helping 340B-covered entities use the program. And he’s received kudos for spearheading the agency’s patient safety initiative, which today counts 350 organizations that are showcasing innovative models of care.
“I’ve learned from Jimmy the importance of collaboration between the profession of pharmacy and, more importantly, the collaboration needed outside of the profession with other disciplines to take us from ‘good to great’,” said Lisa Scholz, PSSC’s senior director. “Jimmy has been a solid foundation for the 340B program.”
Chris Hatwig, vice president of Apexus/PVP, said Mitchell has two personal attributes that he’s worked hard to instill within the 340B program: honesty and integrity. “It will be challenging for HRSA to find a replacement with the same balance of industry knowledge, experience, and political savvy,” Hatwig predicted.
Change on the horizon
With the prospect of national health care reform on the horizon, the growth of the 340B program would accelerate as more providers join and others are allowed to expand their services. That’s especially true if legislation to extend the drug discount program to the hospital inpatient side succeeds, Mitchell noted. Many of the 340B reforms that are part of the health care legislation now before Congress are measures the OPA has supported.
“There could be a lot of changes taking place over the next five years, and that will require a new leadership and new vision,” Mitchell said. “It will mean a lot of work and lots of interesting opportunities for the program.”
Mitchell and the 340B hospital community have not always agreed on all matters, noted Ted Slafsky, executive director of Safety Net Hospitals for Pharmaceutical Access, which represents about 500 hospitals in the program.
“But he has always given us an opportunity to make our point and to listen to our concerns,” Slafsky said. “He has been very approachable and always passionate about the program and about public service.”
Not without controversy
Indeed, while Mitchell has successfully moved OPA forward, his tenure has also been marked by controversy and continued frustrations over aspects of his program management. HRSA’s 2007 proposed patient definition guidelines, for example, received significant criticism from 340B providers for being too restrictive and difficult to implement.
Pricing disputes and other program integrity matters that require government oversight, and which did not trigger adequate response from OPA, have also frustrated both health care providers and the pharmaceutical industry.
The U.S. Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General has published reports raising concerns over the government’s lax attitude toward the 340B program, and the only congressional hearing about the program to date focused on the need for operational improvements. OPA has countered that it lacks the statutory and financial resources to properly manage the program.
“Jimmy has accomplished extraordinary things working under an enormous handicap of very little funding,” said Marcus Farbstein, government affairs director for Genentech, a San Francisco-based biotechnology company. “When covered entities call me seeking guidance I always direct them to OPA or the (PSSC) hotline and they get help and answers. These systems are working well, not to mention the medication safety program being a resounding success.”
There’s one thing Mitchell will not miss in retirement, and that’s his long daily commute from his home in Falls Church, Va., to OPA’s office in Rockville, Md. As anybody in the Washington, D.C., metro area can attest, sitting in traffic on the Beltway is the downside of life in the nation’s capital.
“But I will miss the people, the program, the stakeholders,” Mitchell said. “It’s a big change in life.”
Source URL: https://340bemployed.org/340b-head-jimmy-mitchell-retiring-this-year/