Medicine prices will rise by up to $5 a script from January next year
WHILE the controversial $5 GP fee from last years budget has been scrapped the government plans to persist with the $5 hike in prescription costs.
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MEDICINE prices will rise by up to $5 a script from January next year as the government announced spending cuts to health worth more than $2 billion.
Among measures struck by the budget axe are rebates for dentist services for children, GP health checks for young kids and financial incentives for rural doctors.
Funding for a new cervical cancer test means women will only need to be screened every five years instead of the current two years.
In good news for cancer patients and the elderly the government will subsidise $1.3 billion worth of high cost new medicines.
Women with secondary HER 2 positive breast cancer will get access to subsidies for new treatments Kadcyla, Perjeta and Herceptin from July.
Melanoma patients will be able to access a subsidy for a new medicine Mekinist from August 2015.
A new medicine for eye disease and a shingles vaccine for the over 70s will also be funded.
The government has announced spending cuts worth nearly $2 billion that will see rebates for child dental services frozen at 2015 levels for four years.
This will increase the gap fee parents have to pay a dentist when they take their child for a check up and minor treatments funded by the scheme.
The government has halved the amount it will pay GPs to carry out child health checks on three and four years olds.
Instead of paying a special rebate worth $58 and up these checks will now be funded under the normal GP rebate system where a 20 minute visits attracts a $37 rebate.
However, parents will still have to ensure their children have these checks to claim the family Tax Benefit A supplement.
The government will pay doctors a new $6 incentive payment if they identify children who miss their immunisation, chase them down on give them a catch up jab.
And for the first time an adult immunisation register will be set up so grown ups can keep track of which diseases they are protected against.
In good news for patients the controversial $5 GP fee is finally dead and buried with the budget reflecting the $650 million a year increase in health spending that will result from the axing of the unpopular fee.
However, the government plans to persist with the $5 hike in prescription costs even though it was also blocked by the Senate.
At the same time it raises prescription copayments by up to $5 (80 cents for pensioners) the government is hoping to secure an agreement with chemists to allow them to discount script prices by $1.
The $5 hike has been reintroduced in this year’s budget because the government needs the $1.3 billion savings to improve its budget bottom line.
It comes as the government is trying to win support from Pharmacy Guild of Australia for a measure that will allow chemists to discount medicine prices by $1 in a new five year Community Pharmacy Agreement.
The cost of this new five year agreement, rumoured to be worth over $18 billion, has not been made visible in the budget and is instead hidden in the secret contingency reserve fund.
When it secures the agreement of the Pharmacy Guild this agreement is expected to see paracetamol and other basic medicines removed from the medicine subsidy scheme, the price of two in one combination pills slashed and the price the government pays for breakthrough medicines fall by five per cent five years after they are first subsidised.
The price the taxpayer pays for some prescription medicines will fall as a result of the budget.
The combination cholesterol treatment ezetimibe and simvastatin, flucatisone and salmeterol for asthma and lung disease will fall from July saving the government $252.2 million over five years.
In good news for patients the controversial $5 GP fee is finally dead and buried with the budget reflecting the $650 million a year increase in health spending that will result from the axing of the unpopular fee.
Originally published as Medicine prices will rise by up to $5 a script from January next year
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