Safety-net hospitals call for federal investigation into alleged EpiPen overcharges

An advocacy group representing more than 1,200 safety-net hospitals recently called on the Department of Justice to investigate whether Canonsburg, Pa.-based Mylan overcharged the hospitals for EpiPens, reported CNBC.

The group, 340B Health, sent a letter to the DOJ last Wednesday, saying Mylan's alleged misclassification of EpiPens as a generic drug under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program likely resulted in overcharges to 340B hospitals.

The 340B drug pricing program ensures hospitals treating a large proportion of low-income patients can buy drugs from manufacturers at a discount of 20 percent to 50 percent, according to The Washington Post.

"We've heard from our members that for each package of EpiPens that they've purchased, it appears they could have been overchanged by upwards [of] $500 per package," Randy Barrett, spokesperson for 340B Health, told CNBC in an email. "One hospital reported to us that this would amount to an overcharge of more than $100,000 in the last year."

Mr. Barrett was unable to provide an exact figure on how much money the safety-net hospitals may have been shorted.

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