Budget 2017: Pharmacy owners score $43,000 boost for essentially doing nothing

PHARMACISTS were the biggest winners from Tuesday’s budget, scoring more than $40,000 each in taxpayers’ money ... and it was all for doing nothing.

EXCLUSIVE

They are the biggest individual winners from Tuesday’s budget, they each scored an extra $43,000 in taxpayers money and it was all for doing nothing.

The nation’s 4900 pharmacy owners will share in a $200 million government handout because they did not sell as many prescriptions as they hoped.

Yes, that’s right, instead of banking savings because fewer people used prescription medicines the government is paying chemists for 6.5 million scripts they did not dispense.

If that money had instead been spent on health care it could have funded 10,000 knee replacements or over 9000 hip replacements.

The decline in prescription volumes is related to the government’s decision to remove paracetamol from the PBS, previously chemists were paid for dispensing more than 6 million paracetamol scripts a year.

The number of prescriptions dispensed by chemist fell after paracetamol was removed from the PBS Picture: iStock

The Pharmacy Guild has also asked Health Minister Greg Hunt to end the $1 discount chemists are allowed to offer people when they get a government subsidised prescription.

News Corp has revealed chemists are refusing to pass on the voluntary discount with just 28 per cent of prescriptions attracting it since January 2016.

“The Minister has also said he is willing to review the optional $1 co-payment discount following the Pharmacy Remuneration and Regulation Review, which is very welcome, although it needs to be noted that this commitment does not indicate a current disposition to discontinue the $1 discount,” Pharmacy Guild chief David Quilty told his members in a budget brief.

The $200 million compensation payment to chemists is the result of a risk sharing clause in a five-year community pharmacy agreement the government signed with the Pharmacy Guild which represents the nation’s pharmacy owners.

That agreement predicted a certain number of prescriptions would be sold each year and in 2015-16 there was a 6.5 million shortfall in scripts dispensed after paracetamol was removed from the drug subsidy scheme.

The government will increase the fee it pays chemists to dispense medicines. Picture: iStock

So, from July this year the government will increase $3.54 the Administration Handling and Infrastructure fee (AHI) it pays chemists each time they dispense a prescription medicine.

That will give each pharmacy owner an average $13,600 a year income boost each year.

In addition they will share in a further $10 million to compensate them when medicine prices fall under a separate agreement between the government and big pharmaceutical companies.

This will deliver pharmacies an additional $2000 in government compensation.

Chemists will also be paid $600 million to deliver services to customers including $340 million for dose administration aids like blister packs, $90 million for diabetes and Med check programs, $60 million for home medicines reviews.

And at the same time the government has vowed to protect chemists by cementing a rule that stifles competition and makes it illegal for a chemist to open a new pharmacy within 1.5 kilometres of an existing pharmacy.

This is before it publicly released a government report that was inquiring into whether the pharmacy rules should continue.

A series of government inquiries and a recent business analysis have called for supermarkets to be allowed to sell prescriptions claiming the protection of pharmacy owners is too costly for our health system.

The National President of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, George Tambassis, said: “The Government has recognised significant pressure on community pharmacies, and the importance of maintaining the pivotal role of the community pharmacy sector in delivering affordable medicines and professional services to Australian patients.”