Question for a Chemist?

BrianJD

Hi

I buy medicine every month and up until recently I used to buy my months supply on the 1st of the month and then maybe the very end of them month. This enabled me to save probable 4-5 months of €135 (DPS) per year.

I was told last month, not by the chemist but a staff member that there was a clamp down on this? THe chemist is former school mate of mine so I'm not sure if he was doing me a favour.

Is this true and is there a regulation you have to follow?

bleg

If you're getting your medication 12 months a year you have to pay 12 x €132. The rest is paid for by the state. The body that reimburses pharmacists will not reimburse for a patient twice in the same month (except maybe once a year for patients getting 28 days supply at a time.) Your pharmacist friend was probably putting through your meds forward dated to the next month to receive payment from the HSE and leaving you off the €132. Or maybe he wasn't and was just making a loss.



It's not a regulation per se. We just won't get any money if we do it more than once per year.

locum-motion

My learned colleague Bleg is mistaken. There is a regulation. It's not actually an Act of the Oireachtas, but it is included in the rules for how the DPS operates. Basically, if you get a year's supply, you have to pay €132 twelve times - once per calendar month. The way it works is like this: the PCRS (who pay pharmacists, doctors, dentists etc) tots up how much your family's bill comes to, subtracts the €132 that the pharmacy got from you from the total, and pays the balance to the pharmacy. However, if they see while they're totting that a particular patient/family has picked up two months' supply, they will subtract €264. They then won't subtract anything in respect of that family in the following month. They just assume that the pharmacy has collected 12x €132 (per year) from you, whether they (the pharmacy) actually have or not.

As Bleg has pointed out, there is a sort of exception: most long-term medications are packed in packets of 28 days' supply. That's 4 weeks, or what is occasionally referred to as a 'medical month'. There are 13 periods of 4 weeks in a year. So if you're getting 4 weeks supply at a time, you'll pick up your stuff 13 times. However, you'll only be charged €132 on twelve of those occasions - you get one 'free' supply per year. Lets just say for example that you collected 4 weeks' supply today, and then return every fourth Friday.
You will collect on-You will pay:
16 Nov - €132
14 Dec - €132
11 Jan - €132
8 Feb - €132
7 Mar - €132
5 Apr - €132
3 May - €132
31 May - Nothing; this is your "free" supply.
28 Jun - €132
26 Jul - €132
23 Aug - €132
20 Sep - €132
18 Oct - €132, and that brings you back around to mid-Nov.

So there you have it; 13 "months" supply, 12 payments.

Unfortunately, many people try to abuse the system. If you pick up at the beginning and end of (say) March, skip April, then come in again at the beginning and end of May, then skip June, return at the beginning of July, and so on then you may (if the pharmacy isn't vigilant) get away with only paying the €132 about half the time. However: A) this is abusing the system and is forbidden, and the pharmacist is getting hit by a €264 deduction every two months, so the pharmacist is effectively the one that loses out. These days, most pharmacists are careful to make sure that they don't get done in this manner.

If your pharmacist is a old school buddy, maybe he just didn't want to insult you with a confrontation. Effectively you were abusing the system in a manner that might possibly be seen as fraudulent (even though you didn't realise it). He might even have told the staff member to speak to you about it on his day off or something, because he didn't want to offend you. Mind you, if your buddy does indeed think that way, then he must be a very sensitive soul altogether!

bleg

locum-motion wrote: »

My learned colleague Bleg is mistaken. There is a regulation. It's not actually an Act of the Oireachtas, but it is included in the rules for how the DPS operates.

I was just making sure the rest of ye knew, keeping you on your toes... :P