Generic drugs online

Source: TheChronicleHerald.ca

Date: 1-Jul-2011

Author: SELENA ROSS

New pharmacy dispensing fees under the Pharmacare program were announced Thursday, five days after the province settled a dispute with pharmacy owners that threatened to disrupt sale of drugs through Pharmacare.

New generic drug prices for Pharmacare members were also released. They follow a pricing plan the province first announced in April.

The drugs will become cheaper for Pharmacare members, helping many save on their copayments. At the same time, dispensing fees will go up for all prescriptions sold under Pharmacare, generic or not. Consumers with Pharmacare do not normally pay the dispensing fee.

Overall, pharmacies will lose money, and consumers will gain, said Don Kyte, who owns a Pharmasave store in Cole Harbour. But he said the rules are complicated, and it will take time before all the ramifications are understood - especially for seniors, who use Pharmacare most heavily.

The new cap on generic drug prices is based on the price of their brand name equivalent and will be implemented today in Nova Scotia, the provincial government said Thursday.

Generic drug prices will be capped at 45 per cent of the brand name cost under the province's Pharmacare program, followed by a 40 per cent cap on Jan. 1 and finally a 35 per cent cap on July 1 next year.

Last week, the government announced it had resolved its conflict with the pharmacists association. The province had said it would lower the price it would pay for generic drugs under Pharmacare. In response, pharmacists wanted to raise the fee they are paid to dispense Pharmacare prescriptions.

Pharmacists said they would lose too much money with the price cap and that some businesses would cut back services or eventually shut down.

Under the agreement, pharmacists will be able to recover some of their lost profits through an immediate 11-cent hike in their dispensing fees, which will ultimately go up 32 more cents to $11.05, through a series of small increases, by June 30, 2014.

Until then, pharmacies will also receive small "transition fees" from the government to help them adjust to the new pricing. Starting today, pharmacies will also be able to bill the province for reviewing, adapting and substituting patients' medications.

More than 200,000 Nova Scotians use Pharmacare, according to Health Minister Maureen MacDonald. She said this week's agreement will save the province about $6 million this year. She said Pharmacare programs are growing by about six or seven per cent a year, a rate the province cannot sustain.

"There wouldn't have been any point in capping generic drug costs if we were just going to take all of the savings and then give them to the pharmacies," MacDonald said. "Some of them we will give to our public plans. The purpose is to slow the rate of growth."

Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia have also put similar generic drug price caps in place for public programs.

Nova Scotia pays some of the country's highest costs for generic drugs, MacDonald said. The province decided to intervene, and it analyzed drug prices to decide on appropriate caps, she said.

"We came up with those numbers through a consultation process that we did back in the fall with drug manufacturers, pharmacy owners, pharmacists and a variety of consumer groups, including seniors organizations," MacDonald said.

Nova Scotia has previously paid about 63 per cent of the brand cost of drugs for its Pharmacare prescription sales.

No one from the Pharmacy Association of Nova Scotia was available for comment Thursday.