The 2016 340B Coalition Winter Conference was the largest conference to date with over 1,300 attendees. The event, held in San Diego, CA February 17th – 19th, offered a variety of educational and networking opportunities for covered entities, pharmacies, vendors and other stakeholders in the program. The Hudson Headwaters 340B Pharmacy Services Team was among those attendees; we participated in the many informative sessions and enjoyed meeting current and prospective clients at our booth.
Hudson Headwaters 340B Pharmacy Services Vice President, Jim Donnelly, presented at the conference during a Medicaid Billing and Reimbursement panel. Donnelly spoke on the current and future state of Medicaid and Managed Care and voiced concerns shared by many covered entities.
Compliance remained a hot topic at this year’s conference. HRSA Audit statistics, including the number of completed audits and common findings, were outlined during the pre-conference workshop, setting the tone for the rest of the week. Many attendees who visited the Hudson Headwaters 340B Pharmacy Services booth were most interested in our Independent Audit and Compliance Assessment services.
There was also a lot to be said about the proposed Mega Guidance released in late August of 2015. The biggest proposed change is arguably the new six-pronged patient definition, which creates additional criteria for avoiding diversion. HRSA continues to sift through hundreds of comments from concerned health centers and hospitals in an effort to draft final guidance. Despite the major impact of the proposed guidance on covered entities, it is not known when the finalized guidance will be released. The general consensus was that the guidance will not be finalized during an election year.
Additional items in store for 2016 include changes to HRSA dispute resolution, ceiling price rules, manufacturing civil monetary penalties, and new reports from the Health & Human Services Office of Inspector General on duplicate discounts and manufacturer compliance with AMP reporting. A HRSA website for 340B price verification was also discussed.
We are guaranteed to hear more on all of these topics as the year progresses, and we at Hudson Headwaters 340B Pharmacy Services look forward to keeping you up to date and informed. Our unique perspective as a covered entity and 340B vendor enables us to serve our clients from a place of understanding and common ground. We want to preserve the integrity of 340B and the first step is helping you. Give us a call (855-835-340B) or send an email (340Bsolutions@hhhn.org). We’re in this together, so let’s do it right.