Twenty-two cents. That was all one Louisiana household had left each month after paying its expenses. Sitting against that monthly margin was a $92,350 balance owed to North Oaks Health System, a nonprofit hospital participating in the 340B program. The household ultimately filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, with medical debt accounting for more than 42% of its unsecured debt. At twenty-two cents a month, paying off the North Oaks balance would have taken roughly 35,000 years. There was no realistic path to repayment. Yet the debt still existed, the patient still carried it and eventually it appeared in federal bankruptcy court. Read more: hubs.ly/Q04wGLmP0 What the bankruptcy record cannot tell us is whether the patient knew North Oaks participated in 340B, whether charity care was offered or whether the household could have qualified for assistance. Federal 340B rules do not require that level of patient-specific transparency. These are the questions behind The Invisible Patient: Transparency and Accountability in 340B at the State of the Patient Summit on September 24. Join us on Capitol Hill as we examine what patients should be able to see, know and expect from a program intended to support care for vulnerable communities: hubs.ly/Q04wG0lb0

Patients can’t tell you what 340B did for them when they often don’t know the program touched their care in the first place. That lack of visibility is at the center of the latest State of the Patient Podcast, and it’s a conversation Patients Rising is bringing to Capitol Hill. On September 24, the State of the Patient Summit will bring together patients, clinicians and policy leaders for a discussion on transparency and accountability in 340B, including what patients should be able to know about the savings generated in their name and how those resources are being used. Listen to the episode: hubs.ly/Q04wGb4P0 Then join us in Washington for the conversation about what comes next: hubs.ly/Q04wFYSn0

There's a federal program that lets many of the country's largest nonprofit hospitals buy outpatient drugs at deep discounts — 25%, 50%, sometimes 70% off. Last year it moved more than $81 billion. So where did the money go? The program is called 340B, and the entire justification for it is that the savings reach vulnerable and underserved patients. But hospitals aren't required to show where those savings land, and no patient is ever told the discount touched their prescription. There's no box on your receipt that says "I'm a 340B patient." A medication can save your hospital $5,000 and you'll pay the same copay and walk out knowing nothing. So Patients Rising stopped arguing about surveys and went to the one place the relationship between a hospital and a struggling patient becomes a public record: bankruptcy court. Listen to this episode: hubs.ly/Q04x5WVr0