DHPA has submitted comments to the U.S. Health and Human Services Request for Information entitled “Blueprint to Lower Drug Prices and Reduce Out-of-Pocket Costs.”
In the comment letter, DHPA focuses on several of the key initiatives highlighted in the RFI:
- DHPA supports site neutrality for physician-administered drugs across the hospital and independent physician practice settings in order to promote competition and reduce the overall cost of care for the Medicare system and beneficiaries.
- DHPA supports reform of the 340B drug discount program to address the program’s anti-competitive nature and to ensure that low-income and uninsured patients benefit from the program.
- Consistent with the President’s commitment to “put American patients first,” DHPA cannot support a shift of drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D. Moving drugs from Part B to Part D would not achieve the Administration’s goals of improving health outcomes, lowering out-of-pocket costs, and decreasing total cost of care.
- For similar reasons, DHPA is concerned about the repercussions of HHS relaunching a Competitive Acquisition Program (“CAP”) for Part B drugs. If such a program were re-introduced, physician participation should be voluntary and substantial guardrails would need to be put in place to ensure that CAP vendors do not interfere in the physician-patient relationship.
Click here to read DHPA’s full comment letter.