Pharmacy Daily | Doctors call for far-reaching reforms

IN THE May budget, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) is calling on the Federal Government to make a number of reforms with far-reaching impact on pharmacy.

These include extending the length of prescriptions; allowing a larger supply of medicines in one go - a two-month supply would halve dispensing fees, which cost taxpayers $1.67 billion in 2021-22; investigating the benefits of removing the $1 discount rule; overhauling Australia's anti-competitive pharmacy ownership and location laws; and making prescribing faster and easier for GPs by streamlining the PBS prescribing system, which RACGP says is unnecessarily complex.

RACGP President Dr Nicole Higgins said Australia's health system crisis must be tackled from all sides explaining that "this includes extending the length of prescriptions.

"If GPs could give longer prescriptions of 15-months instead of the usual six-months to suitable patients, it would make a big difference," Higgins said.

"GPs should have the flexibility to decide what's right for their patients.

"Another easy way to lower costs is to allow patients to get a larger supply of medicines in one go by increasing the supply interval for certain medicines.

"This will save the government money on dispensing fees which could in turn be used to further subsidise patient care.

"Over 140 medicines could have an increased supply interval of two months, according to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, many for chronic conditions, such as heart disease which affects over 4% of people.

"The cost of dispensing was $1.67 billion in 2021-22, a two-month interval would cut this by half.

"We also support further investigation of the benefits to patients in changing the $1 discount rule.

"This prevents pharmacies from discounting medicines that cost more than the current co-payment of $30 by more than $1.

"Other countries like New Zealand don't have this rule, so pharmacies can offer significant discounts on some medicines."

The RACGP President also called for changes to the PBS prescribing system to reduce administration time as well as looking at alternative models to reduce costs.

"Other models such as supermarket pharmacies, online pharmacies and automated dispensing machines are used widely in other western countries like the US and UK, and could make a real difference here, particularly in rural communities."