White bagging, brown bagging, and clear bagging. These are terms used to describe specialty medication delivery methods to treat complex medical conditions.

White, Brown, & Clear Bagging

Let’s take a look at these three practices:

• White Bagging - A drug is purchased through a specialty pharmacy and delivered to the administration site.
• Brown Bagging - A drug is purchased through a PBM-specified specialty pharmacy and delivered to the patient who brings it to their appointments.
• Clear Bagging - A drug is purchased and distributed by an entity-owned specialty pharmacy under common ownership with the administering facility.

340B covered entities do not receive 340B program discounts on white- or brown-bagged drugs when the drugs are received through outside pharmacies. This results in lost savings, as well as the potential for incremental cost for storing, segregating, and preparing drugs for administration. In addition, the 340B covered entity will not receive incremental revenue for those drugs.

The practice of clear bagging resolves these challenges by establishing a health-system-owned specialty pharmacy that supplies medications for affiliated clinics. Having an entity-owned specialty pharmacy helps facilities maintain chain of custody to the products, as well as maintaining all compliance and regulatory aspects, including Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) and other accreditation standards.

Click here to download our latest white paper The CPS “Clear” Solution to White Bagging to learn how covered entities can establish an entity-owned specialty pharmacy and ensure retention of the savings intended by the 340B program.