In 1992, Congress created the Public Health Service 340B drug discount program to help certain qualified safety net providers obtain lower-cost pharmaceuticals for poor and underserved patients. The program currently provides discounts on drugs only for patients seen in outpatient hospital settings. Efforts are being made to extend the program to provide discounts to pharmaceuticals provided to patients who are admitted to the hospital as inpatients.

NAPH works closely with Safety Net Hospitals for Pharmaceutical Access (SNHPA), an organization of more than 400 public and private non-profit hospitals and health systems throughout the U.S. Continue Reading