340B Program
Oroville Hospital is a 153-bed facility classified as a private non-profit 340B disproportionate share hospital (DSH) located in Oroville, California. Our mission is to provide the finest personalized health care to Oroville and the surrounding foothill and valley communities by offering a medical home with a wide range of integrated services, from prevention through treatment to wellness.
On July 1, 2006 Oroville Hospital began participation in the 340B Drug Pricing Program. Our 340B program includes 15 child site locations as part of our 340B eligible sites. We also began participating in the 340B contract pharmacy program on May 3,2010. Oroville Hospital has one entity owned pharmacy and contracts with 16 pharmacies. We use VISTA Electronic Health Record System to manage our hospital and clinic medical records. Sentry Sentinel System and Well Partners are used as our third party administrators for our contract and self-owned pharmacies.
The 340B program was designed “to stretch scarce Federal resources as far as possible, reaching more eligible patients and providing more comprehensive services”. These savings are used to maintain and provide more services to our uninsured or underinsured, inpatients, outpatients and pharmacies.
In 2018, Oroville Hospital provided about 11 million dollars in charity care and roughly saved 50% on overall medication costs due to the 340B program.
One key program funded by 340B saving is our Hospital Discharge medication program. This program provides vital medications for patients being discharged from Oroville Hospital that are uninsured or underinsured. By providing these patients with no cost medications upon discharge we can aid in reducing re-admittance to the hospital due to being unable to afford medications.
Another service that benefits from the savings of 340B drug pricing program is our infusion and cancer center. Having the program allows us access to 340B prices and makes it possible to provide services to many more patients than we could without 340B savings.
We do biannual health fairs where the uninsured can receive free educational information, free health care advice, free health screenings such as COPD screening, blood pressure monitoring, oxygen saturation checks, cholesterol checks, pulse checks and blood glucose checks and free flu shots.
By contracting with local and specialty pharmacies eligible Oroville Hospital patients have more access to low cost medications that may otherwise be unavailable or unaffordable.
Scaling the 340B program back would negatively impact Oroville Hospital in so many areas that are vital to our patients and our community.
We would no longer be able to offer no cost discharge medications for patients without insurance. Our participation with contract pharmacies would most likely be reduced or even end if there is no 340B savings to pass on to our patients. Obtaining affordable medication for our cancer and infusion center may become limited. Our 15 registered 340B child sites would likely have to reduce the services they provide to our patients. Scaling the 340B program back would negatively impact Oroville Hospital in so many areas that are vital to our patients and our community.