The event takes place from June 1-5, 2013 at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minnesota, and the conference features continuing education for healthcare professionals along with a discussion of best practices and clinical processes.  

As an exhibitor during ASHP’s 2013 Summer conference, Sentry will have 340B experts and leaders available to talk to healthcare stakeholders at the event about our 340B solutions that are serving more than 1,000 hospitals and community/outpatient pharmacies across the country. Sentry’s technology is built for maximizing 340B participation and promoting program integrity. 

Sentry will be at Booth #707 in the Minneapolis Convention Center during the conference’s exhibition days, June 2-4. Please contact Sentry at 1-800-4111-4566 x 2800 if you have any questions or want to set up a time to talk with someone from Sentry during the event. 

ASHP 2013 Summer Meeting & Exhibition
June 2-4, 2013
Minneapolis Convention Center (1301 Second Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55403)
Booth #707
Minneapolis, Minnesota

The event features a Reverse EXPO, where vendors such as Sentry are able to talk directly with health system leaders and executives.

The HCP Conference is at the Hilton Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia and features healthcare industry education sessions.

Sentry’s 340B experts will meet with various healthcare systems during the Reverse EXPO and discuss our technology solutions focused on actionable data and 340B integrity.

Please contact Sentry if you have any questions or want to set up a time to talk with a Sentry representative at HCP Spring 2013.

Health Connect Partners (HCP) Spring 2013 Conference
May 6-9, 2013
Hilton Atlanta
Atlanta, GA

The event takes place at the Turning Stone Resort Casino, and the theme of this year’s assembly is Medication Safety.

As an exhibitor during NYSCHP, Sentry will have 340B experts available to talk to healthcare professionals at the event about our industry leading 340B solutions that are serving more than 1,000 hospitals and community/outpatient pharmacies across the country.

We look forward to the chance to meet with you during NYSCHP. Please contact us if you have any questions or want to set up a time to talk with someone from Sentry during the event.

NYSCHP – 52nd Annual Assembly
May 2-5, 2013
Turning Stone Resort Casino
Verona, NY

May 2, 2013 – The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) “is continuing to work” with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on a final regulation to implement the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) restriction on 340B discounts for orphan drugs purchased by hospitals that became eligible for 340B under health care reform, a HRSA spokesperson said this morning.

HRSA sent its draft final rule to OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which reviews all federal agencies’ draft rules at both the proposed and final stages of rulemaking, on Jan. 31. Under a 1993 executive order, OIRA is generally required to complete its review of final rules within 90 calendar days. Yesterday, May 1, was the 90th day of the orphan drug rule’s review.

The Affordable Care Act added free-standing cancer hospitals, critical access hospitals, sole community hospitals, and rural referral centers to the list of health care providers eligible for 340B drug discounts. A related budget reconciliation bill passed a few days after ACA became law excluded orphan drugs “for a rare disease of condition” from the definition of 340B covered outpatient drug for the newly-eligible hospitals as well as for children’s hospitals, which gained eligibility for 340B discounts under a 2005 law. Congress lifted the restriction for children’s hospitals in December 2010.

HRSA issued a notice of proposed rulemaking on May 20, 2011 stating that rural and freestanding cancer hospitals should be allowed to buy orphan drugs at 340B-discounted prices when they use the medicines to treat non-orphan diseases or conditions.

Click Here to read the original article on the Drug Discount Monitor website.

Sentry Data Systems, Inc. has received appropriate permission and release from Drug Discount Monitor to post links to and repurpose this article on its website and provide its content to clients and constituents related the 340B Drug Discount Program and any breaking news.

Sentry serves more than 1,000 Covered Entities and Community/Outpatient pharmacies in 43 states and manages 340B hospitals, DSH, RRC, SCH and CAH sites.  In the seven years we have been providing 340B solutions through our BI platform, we have seen the program grow and evolve, and we know the difference between clinic and hospital participation needs.

Recently, two of our client hospitals spoke about Sentry and the unparalleled support we provided during their HRSA 340B audits.

Kingman Regional Medical Center, a 234-bed hospital located in Kingman, AZ, has been a Sentry client for three and a half years. W. Bruce Latimer, Kingman’s Director, Pharmacy Services provided the following statement about their audit experience with Sentry:

Our facility was one of the participants in the initial 2012 audits of the HRSA/OPA 340B Program. We were confident in our program integrity, but facing a HRSA/OPA review of our program was an unknown and daunting task. Our apprehension was calmed by our strong, firm relationship with Sentry Data Systems. They provided assistance in data gathering, answering questions of detailed data system operations, providing two staff members on-site during the HRSA/OPA auditor’s visit and system review follow-up for optimum program integrity. This reaffirmed and underscored the importance of our choice of Sentry Data Systems as our business partner in management of our 340B Program.

W. Bruce Latimer
Director, Pharmacy Services
Kingman Regional Medical Center

Sentry’s 340B solutions are built with compliance as the foundation for maintaining program integrity.  Hospitals need the ability to delve into their 340B program detail at a moment’s notice, and hospitals that work with Sentry receive integrated audit preparation tools for day-to-day management of their programs.

Data drives successful healthcare decision-making and Sentry provides a BI data platform that is essential to decisions regarding 340B compliance. Sentry incorporates every Covered Entity’s (CE’s) Policies & Procedures (P&Ps) and works with customers to make their P&Ps translate to operational guidelines that provide configuration rules for automated, tracked pharmacy behavior. Our clients have visibility into vast amounts of pharmacy activity and drug detail needed to support compliance and financial aspects of the program.  We offer the highest technology standards with HIPAA compliance and meet SSAE16 accreditation with a focus on secure data management and aggregation.

Technology and customer support set Sentry aside from any other BI platform and 340B program management solution.  Every CE is ultimately responsible for their program integrity, but the need to work with a partner that understands the complexities of the 340B program and the potential penalties of non-compliance is what drives them to Sentry.

The Northeast Alabama Regional Medical Center, a 338-bed hospital in Anniston, AL, has been a Sentry client for more than five years. Brian Jenkins, their Director of Pharmacy, offered this summary of Sentry’s help during his hospital’s HRSA 340B Audit:

We recently experienced our very first HRSA audit of our 340B program. We informed Sentry Data Systems, and they sent two representatives to help us with anything through the audit. Both of the Sentry employees were extremely knowledgeable and very professional. We had a very successful audit, and I appreciate the wonderful services from Sentry DS. I recommend Sentry to anyone in need of a 340B program software vendor.

Brian Jenkins
Director of Pharmacy
NE Alabama Regional Medical Center

For more information on how Sentry’s technology solutions can help your hospital achieve 340B program management integrity, please contact us.

This notice was released on Friday, April 5, 2013.

Please refer to this link for the official HRSA information located in the FAQ section: http://www.hrsa.gov/opa/faqs/index.html#gpo1

While Sentry was prepared for the April 7 deadline, we understand that some customers may need to take the additional time provided by this new deadline. Please contact your Account Manager if that is the case.

Sentry Data Systems, Inc. is reaching out to the 340B community to address concerns regarding Covered Entities (CEs) meeting the requirements stated in the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA’s) recently released GPO Prohibition Policy guidance.

Sentry has been consistently proactive in monitoring 340B policy updates and is dedicated
to providing 340B software technology that operationally meets and exceeds marketplace needs and demands. When there was discussion late last year about this topic by the Office of Pharmacy Affairs (OPA), Sentry began investigating options to assist our customers in meeting the more narrowly defined purchasing guidelines.

Sentry has prepared detailed FAQs to address the various operational questions surrounding the policy update and has made them available for clients and concerned stakeholders.

Sentry’s Business Intelligence (BI) platform executes on a hospital’s Policies and Procedures (P&Ps) by deploying it with a Rules-Based Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) engine. Sentry’s Platform is NOT a limited Split Billing system.  Sentinel RCM is a robust pharmacy/supply chain procurement management technology.  Because of the flexibility inherent in Sentry’s systems, its solutions are able to help customers manage any policy change needed to meet a CE’s P&Ps.  For a comparison of Split Billing systems and Rules-Based engines including a comprehensive review of 340B technology solutions available, see the White Paper  – “An Analysis of 340B Solutions”.

Sentry continues to follow all related GPO Prohibition correspondence and support its clients with product features that assist CEs in meeting their compliance challenges.

Sentry stands by its commitment to 340B stakeholders that its experience and intricate implementation process surpass the standards of any other 340B software in the marketplace today, including Split Billing and PBM model contract pharmacy solutions. The ability to automatically enforce a CE’s P&Ps coupled with the intricate longitudinal patient records, access to an integrated audit tool and contract invoice item detail needed for program integrity sets Sentry’s products apart from 340B split billing systems.

“When I founded Sentry, I was intent upon providing our clients the best BI Platform that could manage all pharmacy/supply chain procurement from any contract, including WAC, GPO or 340B, while ensuring compliance to each of their respective criteria,” said Travis Leonardi, President and CEO of Sentry. “To reach this goal we developed a BI platform and Enterprise Data Warehouse. It is Sentry’s intricate implementation process that drives optimal buying benefit and compliance and allows for ready response to any adaptation required, as is the case with the new GPO policy update.”

Sentry was founded by a pharmacist and is managed by highly-experienced technologists and healthcare experts (including pharmacists, physicians and nurses) who are focused on meeting the specific and complex data needs of healthcare institutions involved in the 340B program. Because of Sentry’s BI Platform, experience and its audit-ready 340B solutions, more than 1,000 Covered Entities and Community/Outpatient pharmacies across the country use Sentry’s Platform to manage their 340B compliance through proper execution on their P&Ps. Sentry’s technology offerings include Sentinel RCM, a Revenue Cycle Management system, and Sentrex, a 340B Contract Pharmacy Solution. Both offerings meet the highest standards for healthcare data transfer with SSAE16 certification and HIPAA compliance.

Her talk was titled “Pharmacy Data Analytics: Empowering Your Hospital with Actionable Data to Impact Your Sustainability.”

Contact Sentry (www.sentryds.com/contact) to speak with one of our pharmacy experts or learn more about our Business Intelligence Platform designed to give healthcare organizations unprecedented access to actionable data.

At this point in time there continues to be marketplace confusion and various interpretations of what the notification truly requires of Covered Entities (CEs).

All stakeholders are encouraged to review every release update and policy clarification provided and determine the course of action best suited to their CE.

Sentry has moved forward with the development of FAQs for our customers and is finalizing the release of our WAC feature that will provide clients the options on the addition of a WAC account.

Sentry FAQs are available at:

www.SentryDS.com/Sentry-GPO-Prohibition-Policy-FAQs

Sentry is committed to providing its clients with timely resources related to all updates. Please monitor the Datanex page and read all New & Noteworthy releases to review the most recent information available.

As always, 340B compliance is the responsibility of the CE.

Additional Resources:

Both OPA and Apexus have recently released clarifications and FAQs regarding the HRSA Program Notice.

OPA
http://www.hrsa.gov/opa/faqs/index.html#gpo1

Apexus
https://docs.340bpvp.com/documents/public/resourcecenter/faq/FAQs_Policy
Implementation_HospitalSpecific_GPO_Exclusion.pdf

https://docs.340bpvp.com/documents/public/resourcecenter/GPO
Prohibition_WholesalerWACAccount_LoadOptions.pdf

Background Information:

The Health Resource and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Office of Pharmacy Affairs (OPA) released a 340B Program Notice on February 7, 2013 that provides clarification to 340B stakeholders about the Statutory Prohibition on Group Purchasing Organization Participation.

The program guidance in this policy release will affect certain hospitals participating in 340B that are required to abide by the GPO prohibition. The impacted Covered Entity (CE) types include Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH), Pediatric (PED) and Free Standing Cancer Centers (CAN). For the details on the full policy clarification, click on the link above.

In FAQs provided as a follow-up to the program notice, OPA has clarified that Covered Entities have 60 days (until April 7, 2013) to comply with the GPO Prohibition. CEs have this time to make certain their drug replenishment practices comply with the prohibition program notice.

The program is entitled The 340B Drug Pricing Program Explored: A 2013 Perspective LIVE Webcast and will be broadcast from 12-2pm (ET) on Wednesday, February 13, 2013.

In addition to Rodriguez-Hupp, the Webcast panel features key 340B regulators and thought leaders from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Safety Net Hospitals for Pharmaceutical Access (SNHPA) and the Berkeley Research Group, LLC. The Webcast will cover both the basics of the 340B Drug Pricing Program and provide more in-depth analysis on Contract Pharmacy relationships, audits of Covered Entities and a variety of other topics.

Learn more about the Webcast and sign up to find out ways to maximize your 340B participation.

Any questions about the Webcast? Please contact the Knowledge Congress.