Pharmacy Daily | GP slams dispensing costs

GOLD Coast GP Evan Ackermann has written an argument against pharmacy dispensing charges for chronic disease medicines, calling for longer term supply packs to reduce patient costs.

Published in MJA InSight, the article calls the monthly medication dispensing for many long-term health conditions "an anachronism that needs to go".

"The evidence available favours longer prescription durations for selected chronic conditions for both health and financial outcomes.

"It is time to consider 3- or 6-month medication supply for many of these chronic diseases, and transfer savings from excessive pharmacy fees back to patients."

While Ackermann admits that increased drug supply is clearly not suitable for all chronic disease medications, such as antipsychotic agents, analgesics and other expensive drugs, "for a sizable proportion of chronic disease management, longer prescribed medication supply is safe and appropriate".

"In Canada, maintenance drugs for long term conditions are encouraged and already being dispensed in 100-day supply."

He argues that with chronic disease medications topping the prescription counts in Australia, the savings to the health system in dispensing and administrative fees would be "considerable", although he does not quantify what that means.

"The main obstacle to this reform is pharmacy.

"Loss of revenue from prescription, administrative and handling fees would be significant.

"The practice of routine monthly supply of medications simply increases costs and inconveniences patients without any health benefit," the GP wrote.

Ackermann concludes his story with the unquantified claim that "High prescription numbers place an unnecessary workload on pharmacists, which is associated with dispensing errors", and a reference to health costs as an election issue.

"Addressing the costs of "routine" medication repeats and intervals should be a priority," he finished.

See his article at mja.com.au.