THE Pharmacy Guild is believed to be pushing the government for an increase in dispensing fees, after PBS prescription volumes for 2015/16 were significantly lower than forecast under the Sixth Community Pharmacy Agreement.
According to pharmaceutical publication PharmaDispatch, PBS/RPBS volumes for the first year of the pact were about six million scripts lower than the 227 million predicted, putting the 6CPA on track for a $500m underspend.
The Guild is believed to be arguing for a 26c per prescription dispensing fee increase to compensate for the lower volumes.
The 6CPA saw the dispensing fee increase by 17c to $6.93 for ready-prepared prescriptions, with this figure annually indexed by CPI.
The new Administration, Handling and Infrastructure Fee was also introduced to replace the pharmacy mark-up component of remuneration.
According to the Guild website, there will also be an "annual reconciliation based on prescription volumes," comparing total actual versus estimated total community pharmacy and wholesaler remuneration comparing actual PBS and RPBS prescription volumes with the estimates included in the 6CPA document.
"If there is a material difference between actual volume and estimated volume, a risk sharing arrangement may be implemented to address the variance".
According to the PharmaDispatch story details of this risk-sharing deal were not finalised before the government went into caretaker mode before the recent election, "creating uncertainty over the response to any variation in forecast prescription volume".
The Guild declined to comment on the issue.
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