gotsomenow
Registered User
- Messages
- 160
I have two quite separate questions about this mess:
1. Can someone with a medical card or a DPS card still go into their pharmacy and pay the full price for their prescription (obviously assuming they have the money to do so) and claim it back from the HSE?
2. It seems to me that the private and DPS business which pays very well for pharmacists subsidises the medical card business which is very poorly paid\(am I right?). Why have the HSE and the Pharmacists union never been able to sit down and negotiate a proper overall pay arrangement that is fair to both the pharmacists and the tax-payer who ultimately pays the bills? The whole payment system seems overly complicated and distorted to me between mark-ups and fees and discounts. Rather than tinkering with the existing pay structure why couldn't it all be restructured properly or am I being completely unrealistic and idealistic given that it's the HSE involved. I just don't understand why the dispute has escalated so quickly to this extent but then again I don't know the history here.
Well done, you show a much better grasp on the concepts than most: have you a connection to the pharmacy game? You certainly understand it much better that Harney does!
The problem is that without the little bit of percentage point profit that comes from the discounts (and also the fact that DPS/LTI effectively cross-subsidise it), the GMS scheme is financially unviable. Actual cost price plus a flat fee of a couple of quid was fine when the scheme was set up in the 70's. But a month's supply of Zyprexa 10mg twice daily (to chose one example) is ~ €140! To get paid €143.60 for it would be unsustainable. And under the new model you'd get...wait for it...€135.90. If you get 3% or less discount from your supplier, you'd be paying the government for doing your job. If you get 6%, you make a profit of €4.30 (margin of 3.1%)
OK, I know the Zyprexa example is an extreme one, but the point remains!
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