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The Top 10 Talent Trends of 2019

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If 2018 was about who was getting jobs, 2019 may be about how jobs work. Indeed, this may be the year that organizations start retooling how they find, evaluate, and even pay employees. Chalk the shifts up to, among several factors, the tight labor market and a massive influx of data, says Jeanne MacDonald, global co-operating executive and president of global talent solutions for Korn Ferry’s RPO and Professional Search business. “To succeed in attracting, developing, and retaining top talent as we head into another year, it’s critical to be agile and forward thinking,” she says.

Korn Ferry canvassed talent acquisition specialists, compensation experts, and HR professionals from around the world to identify 10 emerging talent trends in 2019.

(Don’t) Mind the Gap!

It has always been a red flag—the “hole” in a candidate’s resume, a period of time where a candidate wasn’t working. But an increasing number of organizations are realizing that those holes are there for very legitimate reasons, such as taking time off to care for children or aging loved ones. Many firms are now actively seeking out people with these types of gaps, MacDonald says. Firms are using workshops, customized landing pages and microsites, and other means to find these people.

Making Artificial Intelligence More “Intelligent”

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been touted as the new holy grail in recruiting. However, experts worry that its “intelligence” could create a lack of focus on diversity and inclusion. Even when resumes are anonymized by removing candidate names, AI often can figure out a candidate’s gender by analyzing the phrases used. For instance, “takes charge” and “tough task master” are often associated with men, while “leads persuasively” and “committed to understanding” are often used by women.

One way to help alleviate the issue is to feed the artificial intelligence with non-partial data, such as talent assessment data, that highlights success factors. The AI also needs to be trained to look more for the skills needed for a specific role instead of focusing on subjective modifiers, says George Vollmer, Korn Ferry’s vice president of global account development.

Personalized Pay: Go Ahead, We’re Listening

There are four generations now in the workforce, each with different expectations when it comes to pay and rewards packages. Forward-thinking firms are using social listening, focus groups, and surveys to figure out what each generation actually wants. With that information, they are able to tailor rewards packages, offering different mixes of pay, flextime, paid time off, international assignments, student loan repayment, and other benefits. This is turning the pay and rewards discussion from a company talking to the entire employee population to a one-to-one discussion with employees.

Rethinking the Annual Performance Review

In the United States, the average job tenure is a little more than four years. Experts say that with such short tenures, annual reviews are no longer the primary way to help employees develop professionally. Many employees already recognize this. In a recent Korn Ferry survey of professionals, 30% said their annual review had no impact or was ineffective at improving their performance, and 43% said it had no impact or was unhelpful at making them understand what to do to improve future performance.

Firms are starting to consider real-time feedback as, at a minimum, a supplement to annual reviews, if not a substitute. Ongoing feedback can help employees learn and stay engaged.

Digging Deeper into the Diversity and Inclusion Pipeline

Around the world, there have been growing mandates for more women on boards and other senior leadership positions. While that’s a good development, firms need to maintain focus across all levels of an organization to create an ongoing pipeline of diverse talent, including women, people of color, disabled persons, and LGBTQ employees. To measure their progress, many organizations have begun using applicant tracking systems to find out what percentage of minority applicants were hired.

How Are We Doing?

For years, consumer product companies and retailers have been surveying customers about their experiences with the brand. Increasingly, that practice is becoming part of the recruiting process. Technology is allowing for real-time feedback from candidates about their experiences during the recruiting cycle. The survey tools seek feedback at all points within the process, which gives recruiters and hiring managers data-driven insights and intelligence.

With the data, they can amend recruiting practices, including specific job requirements and interactions with candidates, to successfully hire the best people.

That’s Really a Title?

Chief happiness officer. Data wrangler. Legal ninja. They may sound like off-the-wall job titles, but roles like these are emerging across many industries to meet the changing strategies of organizations.

For example, healthcare, finance, and other firms are increasingly looking to hire a chief experience officer. These businesses realize that the need is stronger than ever for customers to have positive experiences at every touchpoint, MacDonald says. Another emerging C-suite role is chief transformation officer, who is usually tasked with change-management initiatives, often during times of mergers and acquisitions.

Some names are also popping up to attract younger employees. For instance, data wranglers are responsible for organizing and interpreting mounds of data, and legal ninjas are the new generation of legal aides.

Talent Analytics Is Becoming Just as Important as Business Analytics

Traditionally, business leaders set their strategy by analyzing business analytics to determine cost and operational effectiveness. However, experts say they may fail because they don’t find the right type of talent. Increasingly, firms are incorporating talent analytics into the mix. This data measures things such as competition for qualified talent in a region and compensation norms.

Talking Talent Holistically, From Hire to Retire

With the massive influx of data, one would assume organizations would have an integrated way to analyze all elements of talent decisions, including recruiting, compensation, and development. Unfortunately, in many organizations, each of these functions is operating under a different “language,” often unable to talk with one another.

Experts say there is a trend toward a more foundational, data-centric approach that creates insights from organizational, team, and individual perspectives. That allows for a calibrated approach to talent that is tightly linked to business outcomes. For example, the data garnered during the recruitment process can be used to help create a customized development program once the candidate is hired.

Managing Short-Term Hiring Needs with Long-Term Business Goals

The speed of technological advances and changing business priorities makes knowing what’s going to happen next year—or even next month—extremely difficult. In fact, in a recent Korn Ferry survey of talent acquisition professionals, 77% say they are hiring for roles today that didn’t even exist a year ago.

Leading organizations are taking a holistic approach to talent acquisition. In the short term, they are speeding up hiring by figuring out the right mix of short-term contractors, gig workers, and full-time employees to do the work that currently needs to be done. At the same time, they are focusing on a longer-term approach by taking a deep dive into business imperatives to create a total strategic plan that has clearly defined goals, but one that can be amended as needs change.

 

 

 

The Burgeoning Role Of Venture Capital In Health Care

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The US health care system relies heavily on private markets. While private insurers, provider organizations, and drug and device companies are familiar to many, little is known about the increasing presence of venture capital in today’s delivery system. The growth of venture capital and venture capital -backed, early-stage companies (startups) deserves the attention of patients and policy makers because advancements in medicine are no longer exclusively born from providers within the delivery system and increasingly from innovators outside of it.

While venture capital -backed startups in digital health offer opportunities to affect the cost and quality of care, often by challenging prevailing modes of care delivery, they pose potential risks to patient care and raise important questions for policy makers. To date, however, an analytic framework for understanding the role of venture capital in medicine is lacking. 

A Brief History

Venture capital firms provide funding to startups judged to have potential to disrupt existing industries in exchange for ownership and some control over strategy and operations. Venture capital businesses have recently funded hundreds of startups developing technology-enabled digital health products, including wearable devices, mobile health applications, telemedicine, and personalized medicine tools. Between 2010 and 2017, the value of investments in digital health increased by 858 percent, and the number of financing deals in this sector increased by 412 percent; more than $41.5 billion has been invested in digital health this decade (see Exhibit 1). This growth far exceeds the growth of total venture capital funding (166 percent) and total number of venture capital deals (50 percent) (in all fields) in the overall economy, as well as growth in health care spending (34 percent). In 2017 alone, venture capital firms invested more than $11.5 billion in digital health, from patient-facing devices to provider-facing practice management software to payer-facing data analysis services.

Exhibit 1: Venture Capital Funding For Digital Health Versus US Health Care Spending

Sources: Data are from StartUp Health Insights 2017 Year End Report and the National Health Expenditure (NHE) Accounts Team. Notes: Dollars invested (blue bars) have units of billions. The NHE plot is expressed in trillions (T) of dollars. A deal is a distinct agreement reached between venture capital investors and a startup company, typically including parameters such as the amount of money invested and equity involved in a given startup company. 

Three key elements have likely driven this growth. First, the inability of physicians to consistently monitor patients and persistent challenges with patient adherence have created a need for digital technologies to serve as a mechanism for care delivery. Second, the increasing migration of medical care out of the hospital and fragmentation of care among specialties has increased demand for new forms of patient-to-provider and provider-to-provider communication. Third, expansions in insurance coverage and new payment models that encourage cost control have aligned incentives for technologies that aim to substitute higher-cost services with lower-cost, higher-value services.

Strategies For Disruption

The venture capital movement will likely be judged on two factors: whether it improves patient outcomes and experience, and whether it saves money for society. To date, rigorous evidence on the impact of venture capital -backed innovations is scarce. Most deals have occurred in the past few years, and most startup technologies take time to scale and are not implemented with a control group or a design that facilitates easy evaluation. Traditional provider groups may often be too small, hospital operations too rigid, and delivery systems too skeptical for a given digital health innovation to be implemented widely and tested rigorously. Moreover, data on the impact of such technologies on patients and costs may often be held privately akin to trade secrets.

However, some early small-scale randomized controlled studies have suggested potential health benefits (for example, improved glycemic and blood pressure control) of mobile health applications and wearable biosensors. Evidence may grow as startup products are brought closer to market.

Despite the shortage of rigorous public evidence, the strategies of startups to influence use and spending are apparent. Many startups target wellness and prevention among self-insured employers, using smartphones and wearable devices to engage and track patients with the hope of lowering costs through decreasing use. Although this strategy of saving money through helping people become healthier in their daily lives remains largely unproven, hundreds of companies in this space have received substantial amounts of funding. Among the most well-known is Omada Health, which provides proprietary online coaching programs and other digital tools to help prevent diabetes and other chronic diseases. It is considered the nation’s largest federally recognized provider of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Diabetes Prevention Program, having received more than $125 million in venture funding since it was founded in 2011. 

Another segment of startups focus on a separate driver of health care costs—the prices of medical services. These firms are increasingly partnering with employers to steer patients toward lower-cost providers for expensive treatments such as joint replacements. Their path to success—creating savings through price transparency—is also largely unproven, although lowering prices through enhancing competition is a reasonable approach. 

Still other digital health startups focus on improving access to primary care via telehealth, virtual visits, and related mechanisms of accessing care. Some use biometric data (genetics or biosensor data) to facilitate early detection of medical problems. While evidence is sparse, these efforts may lead to increased use and spending. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the startup technologies will be priced below existing substitutes. To the extent that these technologies improve outcomes but at a greater total cost, policy makers and adopters of such innovations may face difficult decisions over access and tradeoffs. 

Points Of Caution 

Given differences among health care and other industries, the success of the digital health boom is far from promised. Medical evidence suggests that changes in practice typically lag behind technological advancements. For evidence-based guidelines, randomized controlled trials remain the gold standard despite their considerable expense and length, which place them out of reach for many startup technologies. In addition to showing efficacy, interventions must convincingly demonstrate that they “do no harm.” 

This culture directly conflicts with the “fail fast, fail hard” reality of venture capital, in which a return on investment is typically sought within several years. Furthermore, the complex clinical workflows of traditional medical practices offer little room for disruption without potentially putting provider satisfaction or patient safety at risk (at least in the short term). In a profession in which institutions move slowly and health is at stake, technological innovations face a higher threshold for acceptance relative to other industries.

Other barriers to adoption include: the difficulty of building successful business models centered on lowering spending in a largely revenue-maximizing system in which providers often lack the incentives to eliminate waste; HIPAA-related privacy rules and restrictions that hinder data sharing across digital platforms; incompatibility between newer cloud-based technologies that startups build and old legacy technologies used by traditional providers; and the lack of billing codes and ways of recognizing provider effort in digital health, which complicates budget or price negotiations. It is perhaps no surprise that 98 percent of digital health startups ultimately fail. 

Outlook For The Future 

In the first three quarters of 2018, venture capital involvement in health care has further accelerated. The third quarter saw an estimated $4.5 billion in digital health funding—the most of any quarter on record. As this industry grows, policy makers have an important role to play. 

Regulatory guidance is needed to shape the scope and direction of new technologies, with patient safety and societal costs in mind. Venture capital firms and startups often point to a lack of regulatory guidance on what must undergo formal approval. The current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Digital Health Innovation Plan is a positive step toward defining the path to market for low-risk digital devices and specifying what digital health tools fall outside the FDA’s scope.

Second, a reimbursement framework for digital technologies is needed. Thoughtful debate about their prices and new billing codes should be had in an open forum. Outcomes-based pricing and other value-based approaches that go beyond the fee-for-service standard should be considered.

Most importantly, policy makers and government agencies such as the FDA, CMS, and the National Institutes of Health should study the effects of startups in health care and facilitate research on these products to inform payers and the public of their benefits and drawbacks. In the current climate, little funding has been allocated toward such research. This leaves providers and patients relying almost exclusively on industry-funded studies, at times conducted by the same startup that is selling the product or service. Publicly funded, independent studies of the impact of venture capital-backed products and services on clinical and economic outcomes are needed to establish an evidence base that patients and providers can broadly trust.

 

 

 

Proposed Changes to Medicare Part D Would Benefit Drug Manufacturers More Than Beneficiaries

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https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2019/proposed-changes-medicare-part-d-would-benefit-drug-manufacturers-more-beneficiaries?omnicid=EALERT1538445&mid=henrykotula@yahoo.com

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As part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (BBA), Congress made changes to the Medicare prescription drug benefit program, or Part D, to lower spending for both beneficiaries and the federal government. Specifically, the BBA increased the size of the discount on brand-name drugs that manufacturers are required to offer beneficiaries who are in the Part D coverage gap, or “donut hole,” from 50 percent to 70 percent. (The donut hole, in which Medicare beneficiaries who have spent over a certain amount on prescription drugs must pay all drug costs out of pocket, was designed to help contain federal costs.) By increasing the size of the manufacturer discount, Congress was able to shrink the share of spending in the donut hole covered by Part D plan sponsors and beneficiaries.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers have continued to put pressure on Congress to make two changes: 1) roll back the discount from manufacturers from 70 percent to 63 percent (and increase Part D plan-sponsor liability) and 2) block an increase in the total amount beneficiaries must spend out of pocket on their prescription drugs before catastrophic coverage kicks in.

According to our analysis, these proposals would financially benefit drug manufacturers more than Medicare beneficiaries: while beneficiaries’ spending in the coverage gap would be slightly reduced, manufacturers’ spending would be reduced far more. Moreover, Medicare spending under Part D would increase to cover the savings to beneficiaries and manufacturers.

Key Definitions Under Part D

Donut Hole: The third phase of Medicare Part D coverage in which beneficiaries pay all drug costs out of pocket.

TrOOP (True Out-of-Pocket) Threshold: The total amount beneficiaries need to spend out of pocket before reaching catastrophic coverage.

Part D Plan Sponsors: Typically insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers

Part D Coverage Gap Discount: A program established by the ACA that requires drug manufacturers and Part D plan sponsors to give beneficiaries price discounts on brand-name drugs when beneficiaries reach the coverage gap. It also reduces the share of spending that Part D plan sponsors cover.

Original Medicare Part D Design

When the Medicare Part D program was created in 2003, Congress required all Part D plan sponsors — typically insurance companies and pharmacy benefit managers — to establish a standard benefit package with four phases of coverage that beneficiaries move through depending on their drug spending. In the first phase, the federal government covers 100 percent of cost-sharing until beneficiaries reach their deductible. In the second phase, the federal government covers 25 percent of cost-sharing. In the third phase, known as the coverage gap or donut hole, beneficiaries pay all drug costs out of pocket. In the final phase, catastrophic coverage is reached and beneficiaries cover just 5 percent of cost-sharing.

The amount beneficiaries need to spend out of pocket before reaching catastrophic coverage is called the TrOOP (“True Out-of-Pocket) threshold; it was $5,000 in 2018. The TrOOP threshold increases each year to account for growth in Medicare per-beneficiary spending under Part D, which includes prescription drug prices.

Filling the Part D “Donut Hole”

As part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Congress included two changes to Part D to help fill the donut hole. First, Congress established the Part D Coverage Gap Discount Program that requires participating drug manufacturers and Part D plan sponsors give beneficiaries price discounts on brand-name drugs when beneficiaries reach the coverage gap. Between 2011 and 2020, this program reduces beneficiary cost-sharing in the gap from 100 percent to 25 percent. The discounts were phased in and scheduled to fill the coverage gap by 2020.

Second, Congress slowed the annual update to the TrOOP threshold through 2019 by basing the update on the consumer price index (CPI) plus 2 percentage points rather than drug spending growth. The purpose was to give certainty to the size of the donut hole during the phase-in of the manufacturer discount program. Because the CPI has grown far less rapidly than drug prices under Part D, this change has kept the size of the donut hole smaller, enabling beneficiaries to reach the catastrophic benefit sooner than they would have under the original Part D benefit. This also helps manufacturers, who don’t have to offer as many discounts when people are in the coverage gap for a shorter period of time. And once the federal government is covering more costs under catastrophic coverage, manufacturers no longer have to provide discounts at all.

While Congress slowed growth in the TrOOP threshold through 2019, under the ACA, the threshold amount reverts back to the pre-ACA calculation in 2020. When the threshold is based on drug price spending growth again, the amount a beneficiary must spend in the coverage gap will jump from $5,100 to $6,350. (If manufacturer price growth had been at or close to CPI growth in recent years, there would be no increase in 2020.) But if Congress wants to block the spike in the TrOOP amount, it must take action no later than June 2019, the deadline for Part D plans bidding to offer coverage in 2020.

Effect of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 on the Coverage Gap

In February 2018, the BBA made changes to the Part D Coverage Gap Discount Program to help fill the donut hole in 2019 (a year earlier than the ACA provision) by increasing the manufacturer discount for beneficiaries from 50 percent to 70 percent and reducing the share that Part D plan sponsors cover. This change will require manufacturers to offer a larger discount and reduce beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket drug costs in the donut hole. By reducing the share that insurance companies or pharmacy benefit managers are responsible for, Congress intended to lower premiums, which in turn will save the federal government on premiums subsidies.

The Financial Impact of the New Proposals

While Congress established the Part D Coverage Gap Discount Program at the same time it slowed growth in the TrOOP threshold — and both relate to the donut hole — the two policies function independently and need not be conflated in terms of making changes to them in statute.

Moreover, the financial implications of proposals to change these components differ markedly. Beneficiaries spend an average of $1,321 on cost-sharing in the coverage gap today and would spend $1,156 in 2020 — or $165 less — if Congress amends the BBA and blocks the TrOOP increase as proposed by the pharmaceutical industry.

However, manufacturers would save even more under these proposed policies. Brand-name manufacturer discounts in the donut hole would fall from $3,698 per beneficiary today to roughly $2,998 — a reduction of $785 per beneficiary. Part D plan sponsors would spend $555 per beneficiary in the coverage gap or $291 more if both policies were addressed.

Understanding the implications of these proposals beyond their impact on Medicare spending and the federal budget is important. Even if Congress were only to block the increase in the TrOOP threshold — and not undo the increase in manufacturer discounts — beneficiary spending would be slightly lower (as a lower limit on TrOOP spending would enable beneficiaries to get out of the donut hole and into the most generous level of federal coverage more quickly) but manufacturers would still come out far ahead of both Part D plan sponsors and beneficiaries. Given the financial implications of these two policies, Congress may want to consider broader changes to Part D that would lower drug prices, provide more cost savings to beneficiaries, and avoid higher spending under the Medicare program.

 

 

 

Healthcare’s vertical mergers kick-started a massive industry shift in 2018. Will it pay off?

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Mergers and acquisitions deals consolidation

Two massive megamergers in CVS-Aetna and Cigna-Express Scripts dominated the conversation around mergers and acquisitions in healthcare.

Whether you think the mergers will help or hurt consumers, both deals have sparked a distinct shift across the industry as competitors search for ways to keep pace. It also frames 2019 as the year in which five big vertically integrated insurers in CVS, UnitedHealth, Cigna, Anthem and Humana begin to take shape.

Combined, the mergers totaled nearly $140 billion.

Both CVS and Cigna closed their transactions in the fourth quarter with promises that their new combined companies would “transform” the industry. Unquestionably, it’s already triggered some response from other players. Whether those companies can make good on their promises to improve care for consumers remains to be seen, and the payoff may not come for several years, as 2019 is likely to be a year of initial integration.

While CVS and Cigna hogged most of the spotlight, several other notable transactions across the payer sector could have smaller but similarly important consequences going forward.

WellCare acquires Meridian Health Plans for $2.5B

In May, WellCare picked up Illinois-based Meridian Health Plans for $2.5 billion, acquiring a company with an established Medicaid footprint with 1.1 million members. The deal boosted WellCare’s membership by 26%.

But the transaction also thrust WellCare back onto the ACA exchanges. Meridian has 6,000 marketplace members in Michigan.

Importantly, the acquisition gave WellCare a new pharmacy benefit manager in Meridian Rx. CEO Kenneth Burdick said it would provide “additional insight into changing pharmacy costs and improving quality through the integration of pharmacy and medical care.”

WellCare also makes out on CVS-Aetna transaction

WellCare was also a beneficiary of the CVS-Aetna deal after the Department of Justice required Aetna to sell off its Part D business in order to complete its merger.

The deal adds 2.2 million Part D members to WellCare, tripling its existing footprint of 1.1 million.

Humana goes after post-acute care

2018 was the year of post-acute care acquisitions for Humana. The insurer partnered with two private equity firms to buy Kindred Healthcare for $4.1 billion in a deal that was first announced last year. It used a similar purchase arrangement to invest in hospice provider Curo Health Service in a $1.4 billion deal.

Both acquisitions give Humana equity stake in the companies, with room to make further investments down the road. Kindred, in particular, is expected to further Humana’s focus on data analytics, digital tools and information sharing and improve the continuity of care for patients even after they leave the hospital.

Not to be outdone, rival Anthem also closed its purchase of Aspire Health, one of the country’s largest community-based palliative care providers.

UnitedHealth keeps quietly buying up providers, pharmacies

With ample reserves, UnitedHealth is always in the mix when it comes to acquisitions. This year was no different. The insurance giant snapped up several provider organizations to add to its OptumHealth arm. In June, it was one of two buyers of hospital staffing company Sound Inpatient Physicians Holdings for $2.2 billion. It also bought out Seattle-based Polyclinic for an undisclosed sum. The physician practice has remained staunchly independent for more than a century.

Most notably, UnitedHealth is still in the process of closing its acquisition of DaVita Medical Group. DaVita recently dropped the price of that deal from $4.9 billion to $4.3 billion in an effort to speed up Federal Trade Commission approval.

The Minnesota-based insurer is also clearly interested in specialty pharmacies to supplement its PBM OptumRx. UnitedHealth bought Genoa Healthcare in September, adding 435 new pharmacies under its umbrella. Shortly after, it bought up Avella Specialty Pharmacy, a specialty pharmacy that also offers telepsychiatry services and medication management for behavioral health patients.

Centene invests in a tech-forward PBM

Perhaps in an effort to keep pace with Cigna and CVS, Centene has made smaller scale moves in the PBM space, investing in RxAdvance, a PBM launched by former Apple CEO John Sculley. Following an initial investment in March, Centene sunk another $50 million into the company in October and then announced plans to roll the solution out nationally. Notably, CEO Michael Neidorff has said he is pushing the PBM to move away from rebates and toward a model that relies on net pricing.

“You talk about ultimate transparency—that gets us there,” he said recently.

 

 

 

Federal judge says HHS overstepped authority in cutting 340B payments

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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals-health-systems/federal-judge-says-hhs-overstepped-authority-cutting-340b-payments?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTnpBNE1HTmtObUl3WVRkayIsInQiOiJFOU1xMDRPMGtzMCtnWXU4MExUVFAzZ3Jrdm5cL2s3S1dMRkVldTRWS2QyNmJZU255UWRIWW14QmtXVkJ2T2VTeGpYTVBvQXZWWW1JVnB0S0crTXV3aFhDS0wrY3NzTmtEYmJEMHdvSG03bGkxS2ZlREdiaWZydFZkbkdlXC9tTHE1In0%3D&mrkid=959610&utm_medium=nl&utm_source=internal

Drug prices

A federal judge has sided with hospitals in the ongoing battle over cuts to 340B drug discount payments, saying the Department of Health and Human Services’ rule slashing money to the program overstepped the agency’s authority.

District Judge Rudolph Contreras from the District of Columbia has issued an injunction (PDF) on the final rule, as requested by the American Hospital Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges and America’s Essential Hospitals.

Contreras also denied HHS’ request for the hospital groups’ ongoing litigation against the 340B payment cuts to be dismissed.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services finalized the payment changes late last year, cutting the rate in 340B from up to 6% more than the average sales price for a drug to 22.5% less than the average sales price of a drug, slashing $1.6 billion in payments.

Hospital groups have warned that the cuts could substantially hurt their bottom lines, especially for providers with large populations of low-income patients. Higher cost for drugs in 340B could also lead to access problems for these patients.

Contreras said in his opinion (PDF) that the payment changes overstepped HHS’ authority.

Because the payment changes affect many drugs—any in the 340B program—and the payment cuts are a significant decrease, the agency bypassed Congress’ power to set those reimbursement rates with the rule, Contreras said.

But simply siding with the hospital groups could prove disruptive, he said, as retroactively adjusting payments and reimbursing hospitals for lost money over the past year would impact budget neutrality, requiring cuts elsewhere to offset the payments. So both parties will have to reconvene to determine the best way forward, Contreras said.

The AHA, AAMC and AEH issued a joint statement praising the ruling.

“America’s 340B hospitals are immeasurably pleased with the ruling that the Department of Health and Human Services unlawfully cut 2018 payment rates for certain outpatient drugs,” the groups said.

“The court’s carefully reasoned decision will allow hospitals and health systems in the 340B Drug Pricing Program to serve their vulnerable patients and communities without being hampered by deep cuts to the program.”

The case marks the groups’ second attempt at a legal challenge of the 340B cuts. A federal court rejected their initial appeal in July. 

An HHS spokesperson said in a statement emailed to FierceHealthcare that the agency is “disappointed” in Contreras’ ruling, but said it looks forward to addressing the judge’s concerns about potential disruption to payments.

“As the court correctly recognized, its judgment has the potential to wreak havoc on the system,” the agency said. “Importantly, it could have the effect of reducing payments for other important services and increasing beneficiary cost-sharing.”

Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, said Contreras’ ruling puts lowered drug costs, that benefit all hospitals, at risk.

“The DC Federal District Court’s ruling to stop reforms to Medicare payment for drugs acquired under the 340B drug discount program is unfortunate because it undermines HHS efforts to cut drug costs and promote fairer payments,” Kahn said in a statement.