Forgoing free services the likely reality for pharmacies under new scheme

Westpoint Pharmacy, like many others, offers a range of free or cheap services to patients, but with pharmacies now facing a massive income loss, cuts will have to be made to remain viable.

On September 1, 2023, the Federal Government introduced the 60-day dispensing scheme, saying the initiative would have a number of benefits, including freeing up general practitioners (GPs) and help patients save money.

The idea behind the 60-day dispensing scheme is that patients receive two months' worth of certain medications plus their repeats, which is double the amount of what they were receiving before the initiative was introduced, but for no extra cost.

However, according to Ms Vo, from her experience at Westpoint Pharmacy, the initiative has a lot of negatives, including the extra cost of the medications falling back on the pharmacist.

And for business to remain viable, the pharmacies need to cut costs where they can.

So the patients who rely on the extra services pharmacies provide, either for free or at a very reduced rate, will end up losing out in the long run.

"When the data came out, there was a good percentage of pharmacies that weren't going to be viable long-term in Australia," she said.

"And it's normally the country pharmacies where there's no GPs."

Normally, a patient would take a 30-day script with five repeats to the pharmacy, which gives them six months of their medication.

However, under the new 60-day dispensing scheme, patients take in a 60-day script with five repeats - 12 months' supply of medication - but the pharmacy still only receives the government payment for one script.

Meaning they're doubling their workload and distributing double the medication, but only getting paid for half.

And according to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, around 20 per cent of pharmacies won't survive.

To combat this for her own business, Ms Vo said she is looking at ways to cut costs in other areas, but sadly this will come at a price for customers.

Currently, Westpoint Pharmacy offers a range of services including free blood pressure checks, free delivery and free Webster-paks for the retirement village behind the pharmacy.

But, all these services were only viable for the pharmacy because of the government fee it received per medication.

Now that the pharmacy has to double the workload and products for half the price, this will jeopardise those community services.

"The government wants to pay us that one fee to do two months' work," Ms Vo said.

"So those fees we use to subsidise all of the other services we provide ... when that extra fee goes and when we're starting to see more and more [60-day] scripts, we won't be able to do things like free blood pressure.

"It's not viable. It's a struggle as it is to try and maintain all of the things that we do."

Ms Vo also said, in her experience, the patients coming in with 60-day dispensing scripts aren't presenting with the usual five repeats, because the doctors don't want patients to go 12 months between check ups.

While 60-day dispensing is only for people whose conditions are stable, Ms Vo said 12 months between GP appointments is too long, which is why she thinks she's seeing 60-day scripts with less repeats.

And this doesn't result in freeing up GPs.

"When the government proposed this program, they wanted to reduce and clear up GP visits," she said.

"But what we're trying to highlight is 12 months is a long time to not have visits and what we're seeing is single scripts coming through for 60 days and zero repeats.

"So, in fact, patients have to see their GPs more than they did before. Or we're only seeing two repeats which is still six months.

"What the government promised of freeing up GP visits is not the reality we're seeing."