340B Final Rule Will Launch on January 1, 2019

HHS shortens the 340B final rule implantation by six months after determining that it would not 'interfere' with the departments 'comprehensive policies' to address high drug costs.

After several delays, hundreds of public comments, a lawsuit, and an eight-year-old Congressional mandate, the federal government on Thursday bumped up the starting date of its 340B drug pricing final rule by six months.

In a notice published this week in the Federal Register, the Department of Health and Human Services said the final rule—which is designed to protect hospitals from being overcharged by drug manufacturers—would take effect on January 1, 2019, instead of July 1, 2019.

The final rule was supposed to take effect on January. 5, 2017, but HHS delayed implementation because it said it was in the midst of "developing new comprehensive policies to address the rising costs of prescription drugs."

Hospitals got tired of waiting and filed suit, asking a federal judge to order the Trump Administration to launch the final rule on January 1, 2019. The hospitals allege that the delays are causing significant financial harm to the nearly 2,500 hospitals nationwide that participate in the 340B Drug Pricing Program.

In late October, the Trump Administration said it was considering accelerating implementation.

In bumping up the final rule implantation by six months, HHS said it "has determined that the finalization of the 340B ceiling price and civil monetary penalty rule will not interfere with HHS’s development of these comprehensive policies."

Under the new rule, federal regulators will provide pricing information to 340B hospitals through a closed website, which proponents of the rule say is essential for ceiling price enforcement.

As expected, hospitals praised the action, and drug makers expressed disappointment.

"This rule is good for patients and for essential hospitals, which rely on 340B savings to make affordable drugs and health care services available to vulnerable people and underserved communities," said America's Essential Hospitals President and CEO Bruce Siegel, MD.

"It also ends years of delay for much-needed measures to hold drug companies accountable for knowingly overcharging covered entities in the 340B program," Siegel said.

Maureen Testoni, interim president and CEO of 340B Health, called the announcement "a big step toward stopping drug companies from overcharging 340B hospitals, clinics, and health centers."

"The next step toward ensuring true 340B drug maker transparency is for the administration to launch its ceiling price website so hospitals, clinics, and health centers can ascertain that they are paying the correct amounts for 340B medications," Testoni said.

"We are encouraged that HHS says it will release that pricing reporting system shortly and that the department will communicate additional updates through its website," she said.

PhRMA said it was "disappointed the Administration did not issue new proposals for this rule as it repeatedly stated it would."

The pharmaceutical industry advocates said HHS "ignored the numerous concerns raised by stakeholders on the proposed ceiling price calculations, offset policy and civil monetary penalty provisions."

Drug makers allege that hospitals have been scamming the 340B program, and PhRMA said Thursday that the final rule's "flawed policies are not in line with the 340B statute and fail to address root problems in the 340B program that have enabled private 340B hospitals to generate record profit without commensurate benefit to patients."

"Not only is the final rule itself overly burdensome in its requirements, but moving up its effective date also leaves manufacturers with very little time to make operational changes to systems and procedures," PhRMA said.

Testoni scoffed at claims that more time was needed.

"The regulation now will be going into effect more than eight years after Congress mandated it—and only after a lawsuit filed by 340B Health and other hospital organizations to stop repeated administrative delays to the effective date," Testoni said.

"As today's final rule notes, these delays have given drug makers 'more than enough time to prepare for its requirements.'"