Wright Quoted on OIG Priorities for 2017

Special Counsel Jill Wright was quoted in a Modern Healthcare article, “HHS Investigators Will Prioritize Causes for High Drug Prices in 2017,” on November 11, 2016. The article discussed top issues U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) hopes to tackle in 2017, including a heightened focus on drug costs. One area the agency plans to review is whether the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services can save money if U.S. providers purchased smaller-size single-use drug vials that are used in other countries.

Wright said OIG might see the vial issue as a relatively simple way to curb waste for both providers and payers, and also represents a chance to bring the issue to the FDA, which approves vial sizes. She said, “It’s something that seems to be easy to do, and it might be sort of low-hanging fruit as far as preventing tax payers dollars from being wasted.”