340B: What FQHCs Leave on the Table and How to Capture It
The savings are authorized. Capturing them is the hard part. Dr. Byron Jones, PharmD, founder of CoveredMeds, told his story, opened a real analysis live on screen, and took questions on air. Everything from the episode lives here, free and ungated.
Both are free. The analysis is the offer Byron made on air.
Watch Episode 5
Highlights From the Session
Byron's Story: From the Pharmacy Floor to Founder
The Live Analysis, on Screen
The Scribe Does the Clicks: Byron on the Collaboration
What's a Healthy Capture Rate?
340B, Decomplicated
ProcessingOne Decision Worth 10x the Encounter
ProcessingBuilt by the Pharmacist Who Ran the Pharmacy
Byron founded CoveredMeds in 2019, after leading La Maestra Community Health Centers' pharmacy network to an 80% capture rate as Director of Pharmacy. CoveredMeds guides clinicians to the highest recommended covered therapies and shows health centers the 340B savings slipping past them, starting with the prescriptions manufacturers have blocked from 340B pricing.
1. Send One File
Your team uploads one prescribing file your EMR already produces: every prescription written in the window, which pharmacy it went to, and the patient attached. No integration project to start.
2. The Analysis Finds What's Blocked
CoveredMeds surfaces the prescriptions manufacturers have blocked from 340B pricing, the savings attached to each, and where they are being filled today.
3. Your Team Gets a Ranked List
Results come back ranked by the savings lost on each prescription, down to the patient to call, so your pharmacy team knows exactly which ones to move first.
Byron opened a real analysis on screen. One health center, fewer than 5,000 patients, a 90-day lookback:
Prescriptions blocked from 340B pricing
In lost savings over those 90 days
All it took to find them
Walked through live by Dr. Byron Jones, PharmD, founder of CoveredMeds. Example from one health center's analysis, as shared in the episode.
Inquire About a Recovered Meds Analysis
Send CoveredMeds one prescribing file from your EMR and Byron's team runs the analysis, flagging the prescriptions blocked from 340B pricing and ranking them by the savings attached, so you can see what your program is leaving unclaimed before you change anything.
Goes straight to Byron's team.
What the Episode Covered
Podcast-style, in four chapters.
From the FQHC Pharmacy Floor to Founding CoveredMeds
Fifteen years in retail pharmacy, then a move to La Maestra Community Health Centers that remapped his career: Byron led its pharmacy network to an 80% capture rate, then founded CoveredMeds in 2019 after discovering that fewer than 5% of their diabetic patients were on the newest standard-of-care therapies, because nobody could see what each plan covered.
Fewer than 5% of their diabetic patients were on the newest therapies. That gap became CoveredMeds.
CoveredMeds, Two Clicks Inside the EMR
Byron shared his screen and ran the tool the way a care team would: pick the indication, pick the patient's plan, and every FDA-approved treatment comes back as a green, yellow, or red tile, with a banner naming the one pharmacy where the 340B savings actually count. He also cited the AMA figure that 74% of prescriptions rejected for prior authorization are never filled.
One routing decision can be worth ten times the encounter.
Recovered Meds, Run on Real Data
The new look-back analysis, opened live: a health center uploads one prescribing file from its EMR and CoveredMeds flags every prescription that went to a pharmacy where the manufacturer blocks 340B pricing. The example on screen, from a center with fewer than 5,000 patients: 6,210 prescriptions in 90 days, 432 of them blocked, $58,881 in savings that never arrived.
432 blocked prescriptions. $58,881 in 90 days. One file.
Questions From the Chat, and Where Scribe-X Fits
Jason relayed the chat: how fresh the formulary data stays, why prescriptions filled at an in-house pharmacy cannot be blocked, and what a healthy in-house capture rate looks like. Byron took his own center from 13% to 82% and calls anything over 40% healthy. The episode closed on the partnership: with Scribe-X Live in the encounter, the scribe handles the CoveredMeds clicks and the provider just picks the therapy.
Byron took his own center's capture rate from 13% to 82%.
Two Fixes That Work the Same Visit
The closing conversation of the episode: the prescription a clinician writes and the note behind it decide, together, what a health center keeps. That's where the two teams meet.
Captures the Savings
Guides clinicians to the highest recommended covered therapies and surfaces the blocked prescriptions your 340B program is entitled to capture.
Carries the Documentation
A trained Remote Medical Scribe in the visit, so every encounter behind those prescriptions is documented completely while the provider stays with the patient.
Byron on the CoveredMeds and Scribe-X Collaboration
30 minutes on both sides of the fix. Bring your questions; bring your pharmacy director if you can.
The Track Record Behind the Session
Dr. Jones teaches from the operator's seat: he has built and run the pharmacy program he describes.
Pharmacy capture rate reached at La Maestra Community Health Centers
Additional in-house pharmacies opened during his tenure there
Years in pharmacy, from Target Pharmacy leadership to FQHC pharmacy
Apexus Certified Expert and 340B Coalition conference speaker
Source: CoveredMeds. La Maestra results are from Dr. Jones' tenure as Director of Pharmacy.
Margins This Thin Make Unclaimed 340B Savings a Leadership Problem
Average operating margin for community health centers in 2024, down from 1.6% a year earlier, with a quarter of centers below negative 5%. At margins this thin, 340B savings left unclaimed decide the year.
2024 UDS data · NACHC analysis, 2025
2.0 to 3.1 million people are projected to lose coverage in 2028 from six-month redeterminations alone. As covered visit volume shrinks, the savings attached to the prescriptions you still write matter more.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation analysis, March 2026
Beginning December 31, 2026, states must redetermine eligibility for Medicaid expansion adults twice a year, keeping health center revenue under sustained pressure from every direction at once.
KFF, work requirement provisions of the 2025 federal budget reconciliation law
Led by a Pharmacist Who Has Run This Playbook Inside an FQHC
Dr. Byron Jones, PharmD
Founder, CoveredMeds · Special guest
Founded CoveredMeds in 2019 to guide clinicians to the highest recommended covered therapies. Led La Maestra Community Health Centers' pharmacy network to an 80% capture rate as Director of Pharmacy. 340B Apexus Certified Expert.
Full Bio
Dr. Jones founded CoveredMeds in 2019 to guide clinicians to the highest recommended covered therapies for their patients. Before CoveredMeds, he spent 11 years with Target Pharmacy, where he was named Pharmacist of the Year and oversaw 32 Southern California stores as a Pharmacy Business Partner. As Director of Pharmacy at La Maestra Community Health Centers, he led the pharmacy network to an 80% capture rate, opened two additional in-house pharmacies, and dramatically increased the clinic's 340B savings. A 340B Apexus Certified Expert, he has been a featured speaker at NACHC's CHI/EXPO, the 340B Coalition Winter Conference, and McKesson ideaShare, and earned his Doctor of Pharmacy from Idaho State University.
Jason Hess
President, Scribe-X · Host
Leads Scribe-X and hosts the Live Webinar Series for FQHC and community health leaders.
Full Bio
Jason oversees business strategy and organizational growth at Scribe-X. He brings deep experience in healthcare and tech operations, previously scaling OneCreditSource.com and serving as CEO of a senior living company. His leadership drives long-term value for clinics, providers, and the teams that support them.
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