12/17/2025
https://hcadvocacy.quorum.us/campaigns/
Please help tell Pharmaceutical Companies that Community Health Centers need to be exempt from the Rebate Pilot program! Go to the above address and send a letter today. This is a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) arranged program with Pharmaceutical Companies to test 10 high cost drugs in a pilot program. Currently, Community Health Centers receive discounts on prescription drugs (pre-arranged quarterly by the Office of Pharmacy Affairs and the pharmaceutical companies) that allows us to provide prescriptions at very low cost or free to uninsured/low-income patients. In the case of Careteam Plus, as a FQHC- Look Alike, we do not receive any federal grant funding to provide primary care services to our patients. We depend on these discounts and the revenue from insured primary care patients to provide the services we provide. (More about the 340b program later.) So, the difference is that the discount is obtained upfront with 340b when the drug is purchased. In the Rebate program, we must purchase the drugs at Average Whole Price (retail pricing) and then receive the difference between the AWP and a variation of 340b cost on the backend. The REBATE PROGRAM ONLY HELPS PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES. This means that we will spend nearly $100,000 upfront each month for drugs and wait 2- 6 weeks (depending on when we purchase our stock) for the individual pharmaceutical companies to refund us the discount mandated by HRSA. Depending on the size of the Community Health Center the upfront costs could be many hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars upfront. Why would pharmaceutical companies want us to pay retail upfront? So they can use our savings before we do. Look at the profit margins of pharmaceutical companies. They don't need upfront savings. They are making billions of dollars in profits each quarter. A main supplier of pharmaceuticals, for example, reported net revenue of $1.3B, $2.0B and $3.1B for Quarters 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
PLEASE ADVOCATE TODAY!!
NACHC mobilizing advocates to stand up for Community Health Centers!
