THE IRISH Pharmacy Union (IPU) has said that its members are now experiencing reductions in payments from the Health Service Executive (HSE) as a result of controversial new pricing reforms introduced last month.
The HSE has cut the margin paid to pharmaceutical wholesalers from 17 per cent to 8 per cent in a bid to save €100 million.
As it has no direct relationship with wholesalers, to achieve its aim, the HSE has reduced the reimbursement it pays to pharmacists for drugs and medicines.
The HSE argues that the 17 per cent margin was shared between the wholesalers and the pharmacists in the form of discounts.
The new pricing arrangements were introduced at the beginning of March, but pharmacists have only begun receiving payments for that month in the last day or so.
The HSE said yesterday that it understood that the total monthly net bill for each pharmacy provided by wholesalers would be adjusted to take account of its new reimbursement levels.
Ross Hattaway of the HSE’s corporate pharmaceutical unit said there had been significant concern expressed by pharmacies that while the price they were paid by the health authority and patients had reduced, wholesalers would not reduce their prices.
“Wholesalers gave a commitment, as part of the review of wholesale services to community and hospitals, to apply a similar system to that used by wholesalers for the NHS in the UK. In that system, the UK trade or ex-wholesale price is higher than the NHS price, but the total monthly invoice is netted down to reflect the NHS price.
“The HSE understands that Irish wholesalers are not reducing their trade prices for individual medicines, but that the total monthly net bill for each pharmacy will be adjusted to take account of the new HSE prices. Therefore, the price of individual items must be considered within the reduced total invoice for the month.”
Meanwhile the IPU in a letter to Oireachtas members yesterday said that over 660 pharmacies had now written to the HSE stating that they were either withdrawing or considering withdrawing from their contract with the HSE for the provision of medicines under the community drug schemes.