In a significant victory for the Public Hospital Pharmacy Coalition (PHPC) and state governments, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced January 6 that it plans to significantly modify its August 29th proposal to allow pharmaceutical manufacturers to discard Medicaid pricing records after a three year time limit and instead is proposing a 10 year recordkeeping limit. The decision comes after a number of groups including the PHPC and other 340B groups, State Attorney Generals and influential lawmakers expressed serious concerns that the three year limits would undermine efforts by federal and state government to combat fraud and abuse and collect overcharges. Since the methodology used to calculate both 340B and Medicaid drug discounts is identical, the 340B Coalition is concerned that allowing pharmaceutical manufacturers to destroy pricing records would hurt our members' efforts to recover overcharges from pharmaceutical companies.

While we are pleased with the decision, the 10 year time limit is not set in stone. CMS has issued a new regulation that seeks comments on the 10 year proposal.  If you would like to see the new proposals, which are set out in two different Federal Register notices, click below:

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/

2004/pdf/03-32329.pdf

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/

2004/pdf/03-32330.pdf

For recent news coverage of this issue, click here:

Recent Media Coverage of Gov. Proposal on Pricing Records