US safety-net providers new Rx discount plan

The US Health and Human Services Secretary, Tommy Thompson, hasannounced moves to help community health centers and other safety-net providers develop new ways to expand their ability to buy prescription drugs and improve patients' access to them.

The drug discount program established by section 340B of the Public Health Service Act will let participating groups take steps to reduce administrative costs and make buying drugs easier for patients. Following talks with covered groups, the Health Resources and Services Administration's Office of Pharmacy Affairs has set up a formal process to consider the testing of alternative methods of participating in the plan. Approved, time-limited demonstration projects will be evaluated carefully, based on the benefits provided and compliance with the 340B law's requirements.

Projects will be considered which involve one or a combination of: development of a network of covered entities; use of multiple contracted pharmacy services; and utilization of a contracted pharmacy to supplement in-house pharmacy services. These activities will allow community health center networks and other covered groups to improve their economies of scale, letting individual centers buy more drugs without increasing their total spending, says the Department. Contracting with multiple pharmacy service providers and supplementing in-house pharmacy services will improve access by increasing the number of sites where drugs can be obtained; this is an important improvement because patients of safety-net providers often cannot afford to travel from their neighborhoods to a distant pharmacy to have prescriptions filled, it adds.