The 340B program was created to help hospitals serve low-income and uninsured patients, but today, some of the wealthiest hospital systems in the country are exploiting the program. By taking advantage of a loophole that lets them qualify as “rural providers,” they can capture billions in funds that were never meant for them – and that today never seem to benefit the patients and communities that they were intended for.

The Hospital Accountability Project has launched a new video series exposing entities benefiting from this loophole and where they are actually located. 

Major urban hospital systems claim to serve rural patients for 340B purposes while operating squarely in the heart of America’s largest cities. Take New York-Presbyterian Hospital, located in New York City. Or Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and Advocate Lutheran General in Park Ridge, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. These are not rural hospitals. They are large, tax-exempt systems operating in dense urban and suburban markets, yet they have classified themselves as “rural” to access 340B discounts intended for providers serving patients with far fewer options and resources.

Our new video series visits each of these institutions and asks the question: Does this look like a rural hospital to you?

The 340B program has grown to over $100 billion annually, and accountability has not kept up with that growth.  President Trump has now launched a program to start the process of making sure savings form the 340B program get to the patients and communities that need them the most and that were intended to benefit from the program.  Now Congress needs to demand transparency and make sure that 340B finally does what it was created to do: serve patients, not pad hospital profits.

Watch the full video series

1. Advocate Lutheran General (Park Ridge, IL; suburb of Chicago) 
2. Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, OH)
3. William Beaumont Hospital (Royal Oak, MI; suburb of Detroit) 
4. Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago, IL)
5. New York Presbyterian (New York, NY)—not RRC for 340B purposes but still RRC for Medicare payment – revised text on screen
6. Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, MA) not RRC for 340B purposes but still RRC for Medicare payment – revised text on screen