As part of the Trump administration’s proposed FY2026 budget, oversight of the 340B Drug Pricing Program may transition from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in the future.
What would this shift mean for covered entities?
Sarah Bowman, Principal, discusses the impact the potential shift would have on covered entities during a recent episode of HIMSSCast, a national podcast for the health tech industry.
The proposed transition is intended to help CMS achieve its mission of ensuring high quality healthcare for all Americans, Bowman says, while providing operational efficiencies, improvements, and overall transparency in the 340B program.
Bowman notes CMS has not shared expectations it would have for the program, but based on CMS’s oversight of other programs, “It’s hard to know to what extent this change will impact the program overall, but it is expected [it] will result in additional reporting criteria and expectations and possibly a different approach to how the program might be audited and monitored,” she says.
How should covered entities respond?
“This type of change will ripple across all types of 340B-covered entities,” Bowman says, so she urges all participants to respond to the requests for stakeholder comments. “Now is the time to make sure everybody knows what the 340B program means to [your] community.”
The HIMSSCast episode on October 3 was hosted by Susan Morse, executive editor of Healthcare Finance News. HIMSSCast is a podcast produced by the HIMSS Media editorial team behind Healthcare IT News, MobiHealthNews, and Healthcare Finance News to discuss digital health, health tech, and healthcare finance.
PYA’s experts help hospitals and other healthcare providers understand and manage regulatory requirements related to the 340B Drug Pricing Program, including conducting assessments, evaluating compliance with program guidelines, and developing internal auditing and monitoring work plans.
