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Baton Rouge General is among the early adopters of a pilot program aimed at lowering prescription costs for workers by tapping a federal program meant for hospitals serving the poor, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The program, called 340B, allows hospitals serving the poor to buy prescriptions at a discounted rate. Companies such as Rescription are selling pharmacy-benefit plans that save employers money by sending workers to those 340B hospital pharmacies instead of traditional drugstores.
Baton Rouge General is one of two hospitals Rescription has enrolled. The hospital launched the program earlier this year for the roughly 4,000 employees and dependents covered by the system’s health plan.
Paul Douglas, senior vice president of strategy, business development and human resources at Baton Rouge General, told the Wall Street Journal that about 32% of the hospital system’s $31 million health insurance costs were spent on pharmaceuticals.
“It was becoming unsustainable,” he says. “We just couldn’t afford these year-over-year increases.”
After implementing the program, the hospital’s drug spending dropped 33% year over year for the month of January, Douglas says.
For some high-cost drugs, Baton Rouge’s 340B discounts are upward of 80%. The rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel, for example, will cost $600, compared with an average net price of $4,830 after rebates through other PBMs, according to marketing material by Rescription and Baton Rouge General.
