Let’s be clear. Pharmacists are not against lower drug costs - provided it doesn’t threaten the front-line pharmacy and health care services Ontarians have come to rely on and deserve.
- Ontario’s Community Pharmacies represent independently-owned stores, as well as large and small pharmacy chains: more than 51% are in fact independent pharmacies.
- The McGuinty government is slashing $750M out of front-line health care in this province per year. The cuts are reckless given their size and the timeframe in which they are being implemented.
- These deep funding cuts will force pharmacies to reduce service hours, lay off pharmacists and other staff, and reduce health services for seniors and people with chronic health conditions. Inevitably, some pharmacies will be forced to close permanently.
- The McGuinty government’s deep healthcare funding cuts average out to approximately $300,000 per pharmacy – that represents up to three pharmacists per store.
- As pharmacy funding has declined significantly against the cost of inflation, professional allowances from generic drug companies made up the funding gap.
- We have negotiated with the government in good faith. We were at the negotiating table for 9 months and we came close to finding a solution – a solution that would have saved the government hundreds of millions of dollars and not compromised our front-line health care.
- Specifically, we put forward three distinct proposals to the government. The final one had net savings of $260 million and we were told we were $50 million apart. Our proposals sought to lower the cost of generic drugs, eliminate professional allowances, pay pharmacists for an expanded range of services and raise dispensing fees to be closer to their true value.
2
- The government has chronically underfunded pharmacy for decades, and many of the services we provide are not compensated. Dispensing fees have only been raised 56 cents in 20 years.
- Professional allowances were designed by the Ontario government in 2006 – they are audited, regulated and supervised forms of payment to pharmacy that government is now seeking to eliminate and not put adequate funding back in. Pharmacists have agreed with the elimination of professional allowances and have advocated for a more direct funding model.
- The Professional Allowances are spent in pharmacies under four strictly defined patient care categories: 1. patient education including clinics and patient materials 2. patient counseling areas 3. specialized, compliance packaging 4. pharmacy staffing costs
- While proposals to pay pharmacists for specific health services makes sense, the government has proposed to add just $1 of funding for every $3 they cut. You can’t impose huge funding cuts and promise Ontarians better health services. The math doesn’t work.
- The government-set dispensing fee for ODB patients such as seniors is $7. The actual cost of dispensing a medicine – including pharmacist salaries, technology costs and other expenses – is almost $14.
- There has been a 4% increase in the number of pharmacies in Ontario in the last three years. During the same period the prescription volume has increased by 15% - more than three times the increase in pharmacy capacity.
0 comments:
Post a Comment