Monday, 4 March 2013

Don't believe those medical stories you hear on tv

A man comes into the pharmacy with a private prescription for Lyrica 75mg. Before I dispense, I let him know its not covered on Medicare and that the price will be $75. He says ok so I proceed. But when I finished dispensing the meds, he goes: "I saw on tv last night. They said the price for this medicine has gone down should be about $30?"

Well being the busy pharmacist I am, I haven't watched tv in years. So i presumed possibly that Lyrica is now on PBS list but probably needs to meet certain criteria and dr has to call Department of Health for authority. 

So i relay this information to the patient, saying that it will be covered on PBS only if the doctor applies for authority. He didn't seem to believe me and thought that i was ripping him off.


My concern is, people watch stuff on TV and believe everything there but they don't read the fine print,  and totally misunderstands the whole concept. 

For example, last year when Medicare has the PBS reduction reforms, concessional card holders/ pensioners who were paying $5.80 (in 2012) per prescription, was upset that they didn't get a discount. And then when we tried explaining that the PBS reduction reforms do not apply to them, it only applies to General patients and pharmacies, they still didn't get it! Why? Coz the articles and news reports they read did not specify that PATIENT CO-CONTRIBUTION payments still remain the same! 

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