What is a HIN Number?
The HIN (Health Industry Number) is a unique and standardized identifier that enumerates hospitals, providers, suppliers, and all other partners doing business in the supply chain. It is the method used by your trading partners for identifying locations of services and activities at your facilities. In the 340B channel, HINs are used by most wholesalers to efficiently validate both the billing (covered) entity and the shipping location of a PHS order, whether that is an in-house or contract pharmacy.
Registering with HIBCC and obtaining a HIN number will help ensure access to 340B pricing for eligible products and locations. HIN numbers are unique to the combination of the billing entity and shipping (or dispensing) location and therefore must be created each time an entity registers a new in-house or contract pharmacy location.
More information about HINs can be found on the HIBCC website via an Apexus tutorial.
What is required to register a HIN for my designated contract pharmacy relationship?
To register a HIN for a contract pharmacy you will first need to ensure:
The contract pharmacy relationship is registered with HRSA
The pharmacy location is operational (open) or will be operational within 30 days of attempting to register
Before registering a HIN for your contract pharmacy, contact your wholesaler as they may have already registered a HIN on your behalf, as is permissible under HIBCC guidelines. If the wholesaler has already registered a HIN for your contract pharmacy relationship, they can provide you with the HIN and you will not need to proceed with the HIN registration process.
Once I have verified my organization can meet the above requirements, how do I register?
1. Visit the HIN application page on the HIBCC website
2. Select “Obtain HIN” at the bottom of the page as seen below:
3. Complete the data usage agreement for your organization.
Ensure this information aligns with your HRSA registration. You can confirm this info using the covered entity search functionality at the HRSA website by entering your 340B ID in the box indicated below:
You can then verify your information by viewing your covered entity’s page after selecting the correct search result:
4. After completing the data usage agreement section, you will need to make the following designations:
5. After completing the above designations, fill in the information for your contract pharmacy into the “shipping information” section, as this information appears with HRSA.
You can confirm your contract pharmacy information on the HRSA website, using the contract pharmacy search tool. If you are not familiar with this portion of the website, we have provided instructions for use at the end of this step.
Contract Pharmacy Details as Displayed on the HRSA website:
Accessing Contract Pharmacy Details on the HRSA Website
To find details on your designated contract pharmacy, search for the contract details of your pharmacy using your 340B ID and the contract pharmacy name (red boxes) in the HRSA contract pharmacy search tool. As your entity may have multiple contract pharmacies with the same name (WALGREENS CO., CVS CAREMARK, Wal-Mart, etc.) select the search result that also matches the address of your designated pharmacy.
Search Page:
Search Results:
6. After completing the shipping section, complete the billing information, review the terms, and submit your request.
Should HIBCC have any questions they will reach out using the contact information provided in the first section. The process may take up to 6-8 weeks before the HIN is issued, and an additional week before the information is reflected on the 340B ESP website. Should you have any additional questions, HIBCC can be reached via email or phone:
+1 602.381.1091