Australians to pay more for prescription medicines

PATIENTS will have to pay extra for prescription medicines as the price of a script will rise, so the Government can save $1.3 billion.

The Government is increasing the amount patients contribute to help keep the PBS sustainable.

PATIENTS will have to pay $5 extra for prescription medicines from January next year when the price of a script will rise to $42.70 as the Government moves to save $1.3 billion in the budget.

The Government is increasing the amount patients contribute to help keep the PBS sustainable.

The script charge for pensioners will rise by 80 cents to $6.90 on the same date.

Patients who need a large number of prescriptions each year are currently protected by a safety net that cuts their prescription costs after they spend a certain amount, but they will have to spend more to qualify from next year.

A general patient will have to spend $1,597.80 a year on medicines, $145.30 more than they do now, before they qualify for the safety net and their prescription charge falls from $42.90 to $6.90.

Pensioners currently qualify for the safety net and get free prescriptions once they pay for 60 medicines a year, but this will rise by two scripts a year, and by 2018 they will need to pay for 68 scripts before they become free.

The extra charges for medicines come even though the cost of the medicines scheme has been falling as the government cuts the price it pays for generic medicines by billions of dollars a year.

Economists, the Government’s Audit Commission and the former head of the health department Stephen Duckett have calculated the Government could save around $2 billion a year more because it is still paying chemists much more than the market price they pay for generic medicines.

Instead of speeding up the claw back of these overpayments, the Government has decided to slug patients with an extra charge.

Last time the Government increased the price of medicines, tens of thousands of patients stopped buying their prescriptions because they could no longer afford them.

Already up to one in ten patients say they avoid filling a prescription due to cost.

Originally published as Australians to pay more for prescription medicines