Federal Drug Pricing Program Helps Underserved Communities

By Lillian Montoya Jan 19, 2025

For more than 30 years, the 340B Drug Pricing program has played an essential role in ensuring health care providers caring for underserved communities have the necessary resources to provide vital programs and services for their communities at no additional cost to taxpayers.

This federal program is designed to help health care providers like Christus St. Vincent serve our vulnerable communities by allowing us to purchase outpatient drugs at significantly reduced prices.

A recent article in The New York Times highlighted a billing error at Christus St. Vincent as an opportunity to question the value of the 340B program (“How a company makes millions off a program meant to help the poor,” Jan. 15). The article examined the operating practices of pharmacy benefit managers and government intermediaries involved in providing discounted drugs to health systems like ours.

This federal program is designed to help health care providers like Christus St. Vincent serve our vulnerable communities by allowing us to purchase outpatient drugs at significantly reduced prices.

A recent article in The New York Times highlighted a billing error at Christus St. Vincent as an opportunity to question the value of the 340B program (“How a company makes millions off a program meant to help the poor,” Jan. 15). The article examined the operating practices of pharmacy benefit managers and government intermediaries involved in providing discounted drugs to health systems like ours.

While it is true that one of our patients experienced an unfortunate and unrelated billing error, that mistake was remedied, and the patient was made whole. Despite the focus of the article, the 340B program is an imperfect yet vital program to hospitals like Christus St. Vincent and other hospitals around New Mexico and in our country.

The program allows us to stretch limited federal resources to reduce the price of outpatient pharmaceuticals for patients and expand health care services. For example, we used 340B savings to provide $39 million in reduced and free care for uninsured and underinsured patients last year alone. We also offer free vaccine clinics, provide services for primary care and behavioral health as well as fund many community health programs. These efforts and others are critical to meeting the needs of our underserved northern New Mexico communities. Our 340B savings are redirected to make these services possible.

For our patients, it is important to know:

• Christus St. Vincent is committed to minimizing the financial barriers to health care, especially for patients that are uninsured or underinsured.
• Our patients are only billed for what their health insurance allows.
• Patients are only responsible for what their insurance requires, such as co-pays and coinsurance.
• We don’t bill a patient in excess of what their health insurance provider allows.
• And, we make available a financial assistance program to patients who are unable to meet their out-of-pocket costs i.e., co-pays or coinsurance requirements.

By supporting the 340B program, we can continue to meet the needs of our communities and ensure health care remains a right — not a privilege — regardless of a person’s financial situation.

At Christus St. Vincent, we are proud of our 160-year legacy of providing our community with high-quality and compassionate care. We are unwavering in our efforts to do our very best in caring for our entire community. That’s our commitment to you.

Lillian Montoya is the president and chief executive officer at Christus St. Vincent in Santa Fe.