Opposition won’t support 60-day dispensing policy that allows patients to buy two months of medicine for price of one over concerns community pharmacies will be forced to close
Seems like the tl;dr is that profits of pharmacies is the highest priority.
Under the changes to take effect from 1 September, about 6 million Australians will be able to collect two-for-one scripts for 320 common medicines, leading to savings of up to $180 a year for each medicine.
The move will save patients more than $1.6bn over the next four years, but is estimated to cost pharmacies $1.2bn due to less frequent dispensing fees.
The Pharmacy Guild has lobbied intensely against the policy, seeking compensation from the government and warning of staff cuts and fee increases for services such as packing Webster packs for elderly patients.
In in-store campaign material, pharmacists have claimed the policy has contributed to medicine shortages and urged patients to blame the prime minister, Anthony Albanese.
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19 comments
This shit just pissed me off.
It's really hard for me to go to the pharmacy due to chronic pain and just getting there in general. So being able to dispense two at a time would be helpful as.
Liberals are absolute scum.
And what a lot of people don’t appreciate is that often it’s not just one drug. When you’ve got serious medical shit going down you might be on many drugs. That’s many scripts and something running out every week or two it feels. So this really helps.
I'm all for it but wish that more drugs were on it.
Some of my meds are there but some aren't. So it'll still be monthly visits to the pharmacy for those things.
Oh well, baby steps
Yep. I take about four different types of medication, and while they're cheap because of my concession card, it still stacks up, and I have to remind doctors for repeats, because I also just hate going to the doctors to get script refills.
This policy would genuinely improve my life and reduce barriers to accessing essential medications. That's what good government policy is supposed to do.
I've actually been able to do this occasionally in the past. I tend to be very drug-tolerant (and it sucks) and for a couple of my meds my GP called up medicare and the prescription was modified so I could do this.
I wonder if this is a simplification of that process?
yeah, my doctor has to regularly call up (medicare/the PBS/someone) to have my script generated "on authority" so that I can receive x amount of boxes of something at once (as my dose for that medication falls between two different mg levels of what is produced and boxed).
if this didn't happen, i would have to get two seperate scripts for different strengths of the same medication and be questioned on it every month, or would have to get one box of the lower strength medication, use the whole box and return to the pharmacy every week (and therefore got to the doctors for new repeats every 6 weeks instead of months).
now the second situation might seem unrealistic on the face of it, but imagine if that medication was a pain medication - maybe you're seeing a new-ish doctor and they're weary of prescribing it, or refuse to have it issued on authority to expand your script for whatever reason. it'd be a fucking nightmare
That's what it was, yeah it was "on authority"! It would suck because otherwise I'd have to get the prescriptions filled out every 2 weeks which was a PITA. (even monthly is a PITA...)
