Price Reduction on Many Medicines as of 1st Feb

bigbadcon

Hopefully a bit of good news in here for those of us spending 100 a month on the Drugs payment scheme...


http://www.ipha.ie/wide/check-the-list.aspx

The_Conductor

Its 120 a month now

Also- I'd love to know why the reductions are not being offered to people buying meds privately- aka- you pay EUR120 at the higher rate- before any reduction comes into being. The government/HSE gets a reduced price- people on the 120 a month scheme do not.

bigbadcon

I dont understand what you mean..

Are you saying we wont get these reductions?

The_Conductor

bigbadcon wrote: »

I dont understand what you mean..

Are you saying we wont get these reductions?

Correct.
These reductions are on prices being offered by pharmacies/the pharmaceutical industry to the government, not to private individuals. Several pharmacies have already explicitly stated that they will not be offering reductions to private individuals. Aka- the government's pharmacy bill for these products dispensed under med card/LTI/DPS schemes will be reduced by the amount in the spreadsheet- if you as a private individual not covered under one of these schemes purchases one of these on prescription- you do not get a discount.

Its been on the radio several times during the week- the IPU have defended their decision to advise their members not to reduce prices for private scripts.

_Whimsical_

Thanks for clarifying that smccarrick. It was very poorly reported in the media as good news for consumers.

The_Conductor

Pernickity wrote: »

Thanks for clarifying that smccarrick. It was very poorly reported in the media as good news for consumers.

Its good news for the government- meh, for consumers........

Far more pertinent for consumers- would be comparisons with OTC prices from the UK- e.g. why is a box of 32 Gaviscon EUR6.99 here, but Sterling£3.12 in branches of the same pharmacy chain in the UK? I don't understand why OTC prices are so high here?

locum-motion

smccarrick wrote: »

Correct.
... Several pharmacies have already explicitly stated that they will not be offering reductions to private individuals. Aka- the government's pharmacy bill for these products dispensed under med card/LTI/DPS schemes will be reduced by the amount in the spreadsheet- if you as a private individual not covered under one of these schemes purchases one of these on prescription- you do not get a discount.

Its been on the radio several times during the week- the IPU have defended their decision to advise their members not to reduce prices for private scripts.

Shane, you're almost but not quite right there.
What some pharmacies have said is that they won't be changing the percentage markup that they use when calculating the selling price
But where the cost price has gone down, and if the same %-age is put on, then both the amount of profit for the pharmacy and the amount the customer pays will go down.
What the IPU have defended is the pharmacies right to do the above.

The_Conductor

I have no issue with the IPU defending the rights of its members to charge as they wish- it is the perogative of any private business to charge what it feels the market can take. It has however reached the stage, particularly for OTC things- where if you need large quantities of OTC medications (the example I gave was Gaviscon) its half the price just up the M1/A1........ Hell- they don't even charge pregnant women for Gaviscon in the UK- once your GP certifies that you're pregnant, its free.....

The government like to harp on about how unpatriotic Irish consumers are for going North for groceries- the point I was making is that there is a strong case to be made for doing so for OTC medications.

Also- what was the rationale used for choosing the 200 odd items that have had their prices reduced? I see most common prescription items on the list- but very notably absolutely no OTC medications were mentioned.......


I may not have voiced the point in my previous post very well- but consumers pay the first 120 for DPS prescriptions- and then the remainder is covered by the government. The consumers part of their monthly medicine bill is charged at an entirely different rate to the part covered by the government. Its entirely possible that a consumer could have two identical items (e.g. 2 boxes of Imodium) in their monthly script- where one costs 130% the price of the other box......?

The increase in the DPS charge to 120 a month- is just salt in the wound on this- I know its a totally seperate matter- but for the consumer at the end of the day- its the same net amount out of their wallet monthly........

Where are consumer advocacy- and patient advocacy groups? The government has gotten its deal from the IPU/Pharmacy distributors/Manufacturers- and is also getting an extra pound of flesh from patients by increasing their portion of costs 20%. Is no-one looking out for consumers here at all?

mark_jmc

Okay, ive read all the posts on the issue and I still dont know how i'll be affected (or not) by the price reductions!
I would much appreciate if someone could shed some light for me.

I have a monthly prescription which consists of:
30 x effexor xl tablets 150mg
30 x effexor xl tablets 75 mg

The DPS price per 150mg pack Post 1rst Feb lists a price of €32.67 (i have calculated the price for 30 as the list is for 28)

The DPS price per 75mg pack Post 1rst Feb lists a price of €19.37 (i have calculated the price for 30 as the list is for 28)

This is a total of €52.04
I picked up my prescription yesterday and it cost me €120

Can someone tell me:

• Is this correct?
• What mark up the pharmacy is getting from me from my prescription?
• Would the amount I am being charged vary from pharmacy to pharmacy?

Thanks in advance for any replies,
M

nesf

mark_jmc wrote: »

Okay, ive read all the posts on the issue and I still dont know how i'll be affected (or not) by the price reductions!
I would much appreciate if someone could shed some light for me.

I have a monthly prescription which consists of:
30 x effexor xl tablets 150mg
30 x effexor xl tablets 75 mg

The DPS price per 150mg pack Post 1rst Feb lists a price of €32.67 (i have calculated the price for 30 as the list is for 28)

The DPS price per 75mg pack Post 1rst Feb lists a price of €19.37 (i have calculated the price for 30 as the list is for 28)

This is a total of €52.04
I picked up my prescription yesterday and it cost me €120

Can someone tell me:

• Is this correct?
• What mark up the pharmacy is getting from me from my prescription?
• Would the amount I am being charged vary from pharmacy to pharmacy?

Thanks in advance for any replies,
M

Prices won't come down until Pharmacists start getting new lower priced stock in. If your pharmacist is having to give you meds he bought before the price decrease then they'll have to charge you the old prices.

mark_jmc

Just an update on this, my prescription for effexor has gone from €120 per month to €76 per month- big savings