Senate Panel Once Again Approves 0.1% Fee on 340B Drug Purchases

by admin | June 15, 2012 6:05 pm

June 15, 2012—The Senate Appropriations Committee has passed a fiscal 2013 spending bill for federal health care programs[1] that would maintain the Office of Pharmacy Affairs’ (OPA) appropriation at its current $4.47 million and supplement it with another $6 million from a 0.1 percent user fee on 340B drug purchases.

In the report that accompanies the bill, the committee commended the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) “for conducting audits of covered entities[2] and recertifying eligibility[3] for all program participants in an effort to ensure 340B program integrity.”[ms-protect-content id=”2799″]

It noted, however, that “HRSA recently published a program notice that referenced an audit protocol to be made public at a later date.”

“Given that the audit process is well underway,” it continued, “the Committee urges HRSA to make public information on the general audit process, including areas of review, as soon as possible and consider suspending audits until this information is publicly available.”

In its fiscal 2013 budget request to Congress in February[4], the Obama administration proposed giving the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) the ability sometime after Oct. 1, 2013 to collect a fee of up to 0.5 percent, or 5 cents on every $10, on each 340B drug purchase in order to fully fund OPA.

President Obama first called for a 340B user fee[5], also called a cost recovery fee, last year in his 2012 proposed budget. 340B covered entities would pay the fee and it would be collected by manufacturers at the time of sale.

The Senate Appropriations Committee included the President’s 340B user fee proposal in its fiscal 2012 spending bill for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education that it passed last September. The House Appropriations Committee, however, never passed its own version of the bill and the user fee was not included in the omnibus fiscal 2012 spending package[6] that both chambers passed and the President signed last December.[/ms-protect-content]

Source URL: https://340bemployed.org/senate-panel-once-again-approves-0-1-fee-on-340b-drug-purchases/

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