Script meds prices!

Odysseus

I'm all for someone having to make a living but I changed a script last month in Dublin and got a repeat on it today in Louth there was 15e in the difference. I would rather not name the med, but really is this not pulling the p!ss a bit? Anybody any opinions?

locum-motion

Odysseus wrote: »

I'm all for someone having to make a living but I changed a script last month in Dublin and got a repeat on it today in Louth there was 15e in the difference. I would rather not name the med, but really is this not pulling the p!ss a bit? Anybody any opinions?

Depends. Is it 15 vs 30 euro or 105 vs 120? Obviously in the latter case it's much more easily explained by competition. If it's the former, then perhaps it was actually an error.

If you like, PM me the name, strength and quantity and I'll check to see what you should expect to pay.

Odysseus

locum-motion wrote: »

Depends. Is it 15 vs 30 euro or 105 vs 120? Obviously in the latter case it's much more easily explained by competition. If it's the former, then perhaps it was actually an error.

If you like, PM me the name, strength and quantity and I'll check to see what you should expect to pay.

Not its 25.05 against 40.59. A couple of euro here or there I can understand be not 15, it just seems to much, I have just checked I never noticed it before in another Louth chemist I paid 25.91 and a different Dublin one 39.05

locum-motion

Well, without knowing what the med is, I can't say which price is closer to what one should expect to pay.
I'd like to draw your attention to the stickied thread re pharmacy prices. At the end of the day, a pharmacy can charge whatever they feel the market will stand. It would be anticompetitive to have a set price.

Odysseus

locum-motion wrote: »

Well, without knowing what the med is, I can't say which price is closer to what one should expect to pay.
I'd like to draw your attention to the stickied thread re pharmacy prices. At the end of the day, a pharmacy can charge whatever they feel the market will stand. It would be anticompetitive to have a set price.

I pmed you eariler, competition is fine 15e difference for the same meds based on two places in Louth and two in Dublin is imo pushing the boat out. I would be interested in your opinion after you see the pm. Cheers.

locum-motion

So, Odysseus PM'd me, and obviously I'm not going to divulge his/her medical history here. In my opinion €25 is a perfectly reasonable price for the med in question, and allows a reasonable profit margin for the pharmacy. I would consider €40 to be excessive in this case. However, €40 is about what I'd expect to see for a higher strength of the same med. I've asked him/her to check that s/he wasn't accidentally charged for the wrong strength, and no doubt we'll hear back in due course.
If the pharmacy has deliberately set the price at 40, I would consider that to be something of a rip off.

Odysseus

Just to note I'm in Dublin until tomorrow, and my records are at home. So I can't confirm the strenght until then. However, thanks for the help.

Odysseus

Right just home. Checked my records the strenght was correct as I stated. However, I forgot to metion that in one of the dearer chemists, they did not have the brand name and I opted for a generic one and it was still 15 euro dearer! Well I know where I will be know in the future.

bleg

Ah Ireland, the only country in the world where the Government negotiates more expensive prices for generics.

angeldelight

Odysseus wrote: »

Right just home. Checked my records the strenght was correct as I stated. However, I forgot to metion that in one of the dearer chemists, they did not have the brand name and I opted for a generic one and it was still 15 euro dearer! Well I know where I will be know in the future.

That's actually a completely different story to what was outlined in the original post. The government negotiated a reduction in the prices of the original brands but came to no such agreement with regards to generics meaning that at present, for many drugs, the generic is more expensive than the original! The cost price of the generic would have been more than the cost price of the originator therefore the price to the consumer was always going to be more.

Anyway this is veering back towards the topic that was closed last time!

locum-motion

Odysseus wrote: »

Right just home. Checked my records the strenght was correct as I stated. However, I forgot to metion that in one of the dearer chemists, they did not have the brand name and I opted for a generic one and it was still 15 euro dearer! Well I know where I will be know in the future.

That's as a result of the negotiations between the IPHA (manufacturers' representative body) and the Govt.
Basically, when the original manufacturer's patent on the drug expired, other companies were able to manufacture their own versions and bring them to market. When they did so, they set their price just a little bit below hthe originator's. Then earlier this year, the Govt "negotiated" with the IPHA to bring down the price of drugs. The upshot of this was a 40% reduction in the ex-factory price of the originator brand of all drugs for which there are generic equivalents available. This left us in the ridiculous situation in which we now find ourselves in Ireland; the generics are more expensive than the originators. Imagine if you will a situation that left a Skoda Superb nearly 40% more expensive than a Volkswagen Passat, although that analogy isn't perfect because even though they're substantially the same car, there's much more difference between the Superb and the Passat than there is between the originator and generic brands of the same drug.

I must confess that I had forgotten to consider the price reductions when I was writing my previous replies, but they do explain the differences that Odysseus encountered, wihout there being any rip-off profiteering by the pharmacies involved. I envisage a scenario like this:

1st dispensing, in Dublin, before the price cut, originator brand dispensed: ~€40. this would have been reasonable before the cuts.

2nd dispensing, in Louth, after the price cut, originator brand dispensed: ~€25. This is also reasonable, based on the reduced cost price to the pharmacy.

3rd dispensing, in Dublin, generic version dispensed, unaffected by the price cut: ~€40 but a touch less than the 1st dispensing. Also reasonable.

4th dispensing, back in Louth again but in a different pharmacy, originator brand again: ~€25, but not exactly the same price coz the two pharmacies charge slightly different dispensing fees.

Did it go down something like that, Od?

Odysseus

locum-motion wrote: »

That's as a result of the negotiations between the IPHA (manufacturers' representative body) and the Govt.
Basically, when the original manufacturer's patent on the drug expired, other companies were able to manufacture their own versions and bring them to market. When they did so, they set their price just a little bit below hthe originator's. Then earlier this year, the Govt "negotiated" with the IPHA to bring down the price of drugs. The upshot of this was a 40% reduction in the ex-factory price of the originator brand of all drugs for which there are generic equivalents available. This left us in the ridiculous situation in which we now find ourselves in Ireland; the generics are more expensive than the originators. Imagine if you will a situation that left a Skoda Superb nearly 40% more expensive than a Volkswagen Passat, although that analogy isn't perfect because even though they're substantially the same car, there's much more difference between the Superb and the Passat than there is between the originator and generic brands of the same drug.

I must confess that I had forgotten to consider the price reductions when I was writing my previous replies, but they do explain the differences that Odysseus encountered, wihout there being any rip-off profiteering by the pharmacies involved. I envisage a scenario like this:

1st dispensing, in Dublin, before the price cut, originator brand dispensed: ~€40. this would have been reasonable before the cuts.

2nd dispensing, in Louth, after the price cut, originator brand dispensed: ~€25. This is also reasonable, based on the reduced cost price to the pharmacy.

3rd dispensing, in Dublin, generic version dispensed, unaffected by the price cut: ~€40 but a touch less than the 1st dispensing. Also reasonable.

4th dispensing, back in Louth again but in a different pharmacy, originator brand again: ~€25, but not exactly the same price coz the two pharmacies charge slightly different dispensing fees.

Did it go down something like that, Od?

Your spot on with the time-line, I have no problems with people making money; we all work for the same reason. Some mates that used to work in my clinic open their own chemists, it just as this was a more person med, I didn't want to ask them what the story was. Before any has any ideas its not an STI med:). It was just one than was between me and my GP.

Any cheers for the bit of clarity around it.

The reference to the locked thread is lost on me, I must have missed that one. How I can guess the story line, as a health care professional myself that wasn't going to happen from me. This wasn't about having a pop at anyone, especially when the same profession is part of the clinical team that I work in myself.