Sixty-day dispensing may sound good, but if you dig a little deeper, it is rural and regional Australia that will pay, writes Trent Twomey of the Pharmacy Guild.
“I fear patients won’t realise the true impact of 60-day dispensing until the pharmacy they’ve got, is gone. And by then it will be too late,” said Trent.
An independent report published recently by respected economist Henry Ergas AO, along with Tulipwood Advisory and the Relational Insights Data Lab at Griffith University has revealed the policy will lead to the loss of 20,818 community pharmacy jobs and the closure of 665 pharmacies nationwide.
Soon regional patients will feel the effect with cuts to free services such as blood pressure monitoring, diabetes management, websters packs for the aged and home delivery of medicines.
These are all services which the current dispensing arrangement helps pay for and keeps your local pharmacy‘s doors open for longer.
Unless the government delays the implementation of 60-day dispensing, as has been recommended, you will be seeing more of these cuts and closures from September when the policy is in place.