PSSC Contractor Launches Paid Consulting Service

by admin | April 22, 2011 8:51 pm

April 22, 2011— The federal contractor that runs the Office of Pharmacy Affairs’ (OPA) recently downsized technical assistance center[1] has begun offering 340B stakeholders its own suite of paid consulting services.

The new 340B IQ Institute[2] is a branch of the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), which has been the sole contractor for OPA’s Pharmacy Services Support Center (PSSC) since the center’s creation in 2002.

The institute says its mission is ” providing research, education and training on the business and practice potential of the 340B program” to all stakeholders, from small health centers to major pharmaceutical companies.

Clients are being offered different tiers of service, with the number of hours of assistance per month rising with the amount the client pays. The institute has not disclosed how much it is charging for its services, which according to a promotional email include “customized 340B webinar and live education offerings, integrity assessments, market strategizing analysis, and student/resident training support.”

On its Web site, the institute also lists “call center support” among its services available for purchase. PSSC is perhaps best known for its free but now curtailed telephone technical assistance service.

OPA’s Statement

OPA issued a brief statement in response to a request for comment on the institute’s creation.

“OPA is aware that APhA has started a new business unit, 340B IQ Institute,” the office said in an email. “It is our understanding that the work that will be conducted under the institute is separate from the technical assistance that is provided under the contract [the Health Resources and Services Administration] has with APhA to operate [PSSC].”

Some senior 340B stakeholders have privately questioned whether it is proper for the PSSC contractor to also sell 340B consulting services. OPA did not respond to a request to address such concerns.

Lisa Scholz, the APhA vice president who has directed PSSC since 2008, is also running the institute.

APhA, she says, is “looking at [the institute] as an opportunity to expand and spread our knowledge and expertise above and beyond our current capacity.”

Cutbacks at PSSC

OPA announced in early March that, due to a lack of funding, drug manufacturers and all other non-provider 340B stakeholders were losing their access to PSSC services. The only providers that kept their full access were those funded by HRSA and those added to 340B under health care reform. If its money runs out, OPA said, those entities would become eligible for the same reduced PSSC services now available to disproportionate share hospitals and other providers that do not get HRSA funding. (OPA’s Web site[3] has in-depth description of the levels of PSSC technical assistance available to different types of providers and stakeholders.)

Earlier this year, President Obama requested $10.2 million for OPA[4] in fiscal 2012, almost five times the $2.2 million it has received in each of the past two years. Roughly half of the increase would come from a new user fee on all 340B drug purchases. Given current budget realities in Congress, however, the outlook for OPA getting anywhere near that amount is not favorable.

Budget Woes Foreseen

APhA seems to have anticipated long ago that a situation like this might occur.

Scholz says the seeds for the new institute were planted with her hiring three years ago, when APhA asked her to begin thinking about the “sustainability” of the PSSC contract and whether a funding structure more like that of Apexus/340B Prime Vendor Program (PVP) was “the right model to be in.” Unlike PSSC, the prime vendor is self-funded through fees charged to distributors and suppliers.

Then last year, Scholz continues, “we asked ourselves, based on the 340B program’s growth and development and where it was headed, how could APhA use its expertise in 340B to facilitate collaboration among various health care providers and stakeholders.”

Neither OPA nor HRSA was involved in the institute’s planning, Scholz says. APhA presented its plans for the institute to OPA late last year, “well before” the office announced the cutbacks in its technical assistance program, she continued.

APhA Sees No Conflict

The office’s response was “not really positive and not really negative,” Scholz says. “One of the things most important for OPA was their relationship with PSSC and not interfering with that.”

Scholz sees no significant overlap between PSSC and the institute or any conflict in APhA operating both at the same time.

The institute, she says, “is offering a distinctly different product.”

Asked whether APhA will seek to renew its contract to operate PSSC, which expires in September 2012, Scholz says: “We have a very good working relationship with the government and have provided all of the deliverables that have been put upon us.”

Source URL: https://340bemployed.org/pssc-contractor-launches-paid-consulting-service/

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