Judge Voids HHS Policy Limiting Hospital Discount Drug Purchases

A federal judge vacated a 2013 policy from the US Health Resources and Services Administration that prohibits hospitals from simultaneously buying medicines though a government drug discount program and a group purchasing organization.

“HRSA offers almost no reasoning in the 2013 Policy—and the little it does provide fails to explain why the agency reached the conclusion it did,” Judge Loren L. Alikhan for the US District Court for the District of Columbia said in an order filed Tuesday.

The policy is arbitrary and capricious and must be vacated, Alikhan concluded.

The order is a win for Premier Inc., one ...