AHA urges HRSA to abandon 340B rebate model that will cost billions and jeopardize access to care for millions

The Health Resources and Services Administration should abandon its consideration of a 340B rebate model pilot program because "a rebate mechanism of any kind is flawed in both conception and design," the AHA told the agency today.

Responding to a request for information, the AHA shared many concerns about how a rebate model would deviate from the purpose of the 340B program.

"[I]t will inflict more than a billion dollars in costs annually on the hospitals that Congress designed the 340B Program to benefit," the AHA said. "It will jeopardize access to care for millions of Americans. It will force 340B hospitals to divert their scarce resources away from providing comprehensive services to patients and toward compliance with a new discount mechanism that benefits only drug companies and their third-party vendor, Second Sight Solutions. And it will do so in a way that has inherent and insurmountable design flaws."

HRSA issued the RFI in February after the agency abandoned a previous 340B rebate model pilot program following a lawsuit brought by the AHA, the Maine Hospital Association and four safety-net health systems.