Staff cuts and profit halved under 60-day dispensing

A report from professional services firm RSM Australia has found individual pharmacies will lose up to $200,000 each year under Labor’s changes.

Minister for Health and Aged Care Mark Butler during Question Time.

Pharmacists will lose more than 50 per cent of their annual profit and be forced to sack up to 10,000 staff under Anthony ­Albanese’s move to double medicine dispensing to 60 days, according to new research.

A report from professional services firm RSM Australia has found individual pharmacies will lose up to $200,000 a year and be forced to reduce hours in order to deal with an estimated $3bn funding cut according to industry estimates.

The report argues the new policy – impacting about 6000 pharmacies – will “cripple” small businesses and claims a “total lack of acknowledgment from the government that this measure will literally destroy some pharmacy businesses”.

The research comes amid pressure from Labor backbenchers to address chemists’ concerns over the policy allowing doctors to provide scripts for 60 days’ worth of medicine from September 1.

The Pharmacy Guild argues 60-day dispensing could trigger significant medicine shortages, cause months of delays, increase the risk of overdose and spark hoarding.

Under the policy, pharmacists would make fewer trans­actions and therefore receive reduced subsidies from the ­government.

But Health Minister said the policy would halve the cost of medicines for six million people and that the pharmacy lobby group was “misleading consumers with a dishonest scare ­campaign”.

He said 60-day dispensing was first recommended in 2018 by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee.

But RSM national pharmacy leader Kian Ghahramani said concession card holders would be worse off, with pharmacists expected to charge more for other services to mitigate the profit hit.