HIN What?
Many of you have been following and evaluating your options as multiple manufacturers have restricted contract pharmacy pricing for CEs. You probably also received our email communication in February describing a few exception opportunities that exist for AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi, if you do not have an inhouse pharmacy. If you did not receive that communication, please reach out to one of our team members and we can get you that communication. To take advantage of a few of these exceptions, you must be familiar with a Health Industry Number (HIN). This blog is meant to provide some insight into this number and how it is important to CEs trying to get 340B pricing.
What is a Health Industry Number? According to HIBCC, a “HIN is a unique and standardized identifier that enumerates hospitals, providers, suppliers, and all other partners doing business in the supply chain.”
Who assigns it?? They are assigned through the Health Industry Business Communications Council (HIBCC). https://www.hibcc.org/about-hibcc/
Where can I learn more about HINs and 340B? Apexus has a great video highlighting what a HIN is and why it is important in 340B? https://vimeo.com/393312657
I don’t have time for an 8-minute video, can you summarize? HINs correspond to the location where a hospital has drugs delivered. Therefore, a contract pharmacy account that gets drugs shipped to a pharmacy offsite from a hospital will have a different HIN. A hospital HIN will have different suffixes depending on various factors.
Surely someone, somewhere already has a HIN established, right? This could be the case. Both AmerisourceBergen and Cardinal establish a HIN for every 340B contract pharmacy account, so contact your rep for the number. McKesson does not create a HIN. If you use another wholesaler, you should contact your account rep a to see if a HIN was signed up for your contract pharmacy accounts. If your wholesaler does not have a HIN on your contract pharmacy account, then you most likely will need to apply for a new HIN.
Where do I go to get a HIN? For a $100, you can go here and get a HIN specifically for your hospital and contract pharmacy. https://www.hibcc.org/hin-system/apply-for-a-hin/
Wait, I need more than one HIN? Maybe. You will need a HIN for each contract pharmacy you intend to use to establish a 340B pricing with the 4 manufacturers above. If you are going to ship these drugs to multiple “ship to” addresses, you will need more than one HIN.
I just paid for a HIN, now what? HIBCC advertises it can take up to 5 business days to receive your HIN and our experience is that they are pretty good about exceeding that expectation. Once you have your HIN, you need to use it in multiple ways.
AstraZeneca and Novo Nordisk: You will need the HIN to fill out their form to get access to 340B pricing for one contract pharmacy location.
Sanofi: You will need to sign up at www.340besp.com. Note: you do not have to submit data to sign up one contract pharmacy. When following the prompts for Sanofi, you will need to select the contract pharmacy location you want to be eligible. Most likely it will not have your new HIN. In that case, you need to submit the following information to: support@340besp.com and include this information:
- Their 340B ESP ID #
- Their designated pharmacy name
- Pharmacy address (actual physical location)
- Their Health Industry Number “HIN”
Now what? Once you have a HIN established and you have submitted the appropriate form to one of the manufacturers listed above, you will need to follow any subsequent questions they may have. Once approved, you should validate that you have 340B pricing for that specific location and wholesaler account. You do need to renew your HIN annually for $50.
As always, don’t hesitate to reach out to myself or one of our all-star 340B experts.