# Designing policies to incentivize high-quality health care for vulnerable Americans: Evidence from the 340B Drug Pricing Program

> **NIH AHRQ K01** · NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE · 2021 · $157,722

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Dr. Sunita Desai’s long-term goal is to inform policies that support and incentivize providers to invest in high-
quality care and access for vulnerable populations.
This proposal, which is the first step in achieving Dr. Desai’s long-term goal, will study the impacts of one such
policy, the 340B Drug Pricing Program, which directs financial resources to eligible hospitals and their
outpatient practices serving disproportionate shares of low-income populations. The proposed research will
generate novel evidence on whether the Program has achieved its intended goals of improving clinical quality
and drug outcomes for vulnerable patients and/or has caused unintended spillover effects on drug provision
and spending to the privately insured.
Dr. Desai is an assistant professor in the Department of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine. She
has a PhD in Health Care Management and Economics from The Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania and was previously a Seidman Fellow in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard
Medical School. She is trained in health care economics, quasi-experimental research methods, and
secondary data analysis using large administrative datasets. Dr. Desai seeks to complement her background
in health care economics and quantitative methods with training in clinical quality and drug outcomes
measurement, the unmet health care needs of vulnerable populations, and qualitative methods. This training
will give Dr. Desai the skills to study clinically-nuanced and population-specific measures and to leverage
qualitative methods to inform quantitative inquiry.
The aims of this proposal are (1) to estimate the impact of 340B Program participation on hospital quality of
care for uninsured and Medicaid patients, (2) to assess the impact of hospital 340B participation on medication
use and adherence among low-income and privately insured populations, and (3) to identify barriers and
facilitators to effective hospital participation in the 340B Program consistent with the policy’s goals.
This proposal explicitly addresses AHRQ’s emphasis on the role of incentives in health care system
performance (NOT-HS-14-005), with a focus on AHRQ priority populations including low-income and uninsured
patients. It will generate novel and policy-relevant evidence on the 340B Program’s effects on patient care
across all major payer groups and the uninsured. Results will also yield insights for safety net health care
policymaking more broadly. The award will support Dr. Desai’s transition to independence and her long-term
research agenda to inform policies that promote a reliable and high-quality health care system for the most
vulnerable Americans.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10260417
- **Project number:** 5K01HS026980-02
- **Recipient organization:** NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
- **Principal Investigator:** SUNITA DESAI
- **Activity code:** K01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** AHRQ
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $157,722
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-09-30 → 2025-09-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10260417

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10260417, Designing policies to incentivize high-quality health care for vulnerable Americans: Evidence from the 340B Drug Pricing Program (5K01HS026980-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10260417. Licensed CC0.

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