April 20, 2012—The Office of Pharmacy Affairs (OPA) is holding a webinar next week for drug manufacturers and wholesalers about its 340B hospital recertification process.
Recertification began today for free-standing cancer hospitals, children’s hospitals, rural referral centers (RRCs), and sole community hospitals (SCHs) and will begin on April 27 for disproportionate share (DSH) hospitals and on May 4 for critical access hospitals (CAHs).[ms-protect-content id=”2799″] The Pharmacy Services Support Center (PSSC) confirmed the start dates on its Web site late on April 18. Hospitals will have three weeks to complete the reauthorization procedure, OPA said during a March 28 webinar for hospital officials. It held an earlier webinar for hospitals on Feb. 28.
In a brief announcement on its Web site’s home page, OPA said it is holding next week’s webinar because it “wants to ensure that manufacturers and wholesalers understand the purpose and impact of the recertification process.”
A longer announcement on the PSSC Web site added: “Successful recertification is very important to ensure continued participation in the 340B program and to ensure covered entities are in compliance with all 340B program requirements.”
“The 340B public database is the sole source for covered entity and manufacturer information,” it continued. “This is the first time that OPA has conducted annual recertification for hospitals and we want to work closely with the manufacturers and wholesalers, as covered entity information may be updated during this time and could impact their ability to acquire 340B drugs. Recertification for hospitals will cover the organization (parent) and all registered outpatient (child) sites in the program database.”
The webinar is scheduled for Thursday, April 26 at 3:00 p.m. (Eastern). Click here to participate online or call (888) 790-9118 (the participant pass code is 854200 and the conference number is PW5342381).[/ms-protect-content]