Pharmacies Should Pursue 340B Opportunities to Increase Profits, Build Relationships
Eric Fromhart, co-founder and chief growth officer at Aventi Health, talked about the importance of the 340B drug pricing program at the 2024 AAP annual conference.
The 340B Drug Pricing program was enacted by congress in 1992 and aims to help health care providers make full use of their resources and reach more financially vulnerable patients. The program allows hospitals and federal grantee organizations the ability to purchase discounted drugs and bill insurers. While some pharmacies take part in 340B by contracting with covered entities, their involvement in the program has been inconsistent.
Drug Topics sat down with Eric Fromhart, co-founder and chief growth officer at Aventi Health, at the American Associated Pharmacies (AAP) Annual Conference, held April 4 to 6 in San Diego, California, to talk about the 340B program, pharmacy’s current perspective on it, and why it is important for pharmacies to pursue 340B opportunities.
“For brand name drugs particularly, in pharmacy today, there’s just nowhere that you’re going to get prices that will make you profitable or anything profitable enough that it would have a material impact,” Fromhart said. “340B is an area of the health care business or industry where you can literally take a nonprofitable segment of your business that you really don’t have any chance of finding profits in and turning it into a place that is helpful to your bottom line.”
Aside from the financial aspect of 340B drug pricing, Fromhart said that there are many other benefits that pharmacies can experience when using the program.
“There’s a number of other benefits to participating in this program, beyond the impact of financials, [like] cultivating and generating a relationship with a health care provider in your community, whether it be a hospital or a health center, that is writing prescriptions, seeing the same patients you’re seeing,” Fromhart said. “It allows to have this layer of incentive to do more business with one another beyond just ‘Hey, I’m here in the community.’ It’s a way to collaborate and strengthen those relationships and grow your business, not just in terms of financials, but in terms of overall involvement in the community with other stakeholders.”
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