In the meantime, Australians continue to skip filling their prescriptions because they can't afford their essential medicines. 1 in 5 people say cost has stopped them from filling a script in the past three years. That rises to 1 in 3 in parts of regional Australia.
For those with a long-term disease - like asthma, diabetes or arthritis - patients might need a couple of prescriptions each month. If they have a couple of kids who also need scripts, the costs start to spiral.
Community pharmacists are used to helping patients, advising them on medications – being an accessible, convenient primary health care destination. But we are increasingly being placed in an impossible position. Patients are asking which medicine they can stop or ration; patients choosing their kids’ medicine over their own. Or worse, regular patients who we just don’t see anymore.
We are really seeing the effect of this with general patients – those without a concession card. Everyday Australians who are doing it tough – the working poor.
The much-vaunted PBS safety net eventually kicks in. But until you reach the safety net, there is no relief.
And if a patient or family uses different pharmacies, they need to keep every receipt and then manually seek reimbursement from the Government.
The good news is that we have an automated solution coming. In the 8th Community Pharmacy Agreement, the government committed to automating safety net recording.
Services Australia are working on building and implementing this system. Like any big IT system, it’s going to take time. It’s a commonsense initiative that most Australians would expect was already in place.
The PBS safety net, even once automated, will not deliver patients the cost of living help they need to afford their medicines now. They might as well be chasing rainbows. Relief is needed at the point of purchase and that only occurs with a reduction in the regulated price.
What patients need, right now, is a reduction in the general co-payment. A decrease from $31.60, to make their medicine more affordable. A reduction goes straight into the hip pocket of every Australian who needs a prescription. A price decrease is non-inflationary and the government can introduce it straight away. It is completely in their control.
We also know it’s popular – it’s the most popular measure to reduce the cost-of-living pressure being felt across the country. 79% of people support reducing the co-payment and adding more medicines onto the PBS.
More than 250,000 Australians are hospitalised each year, with another 400,000 presenting to emergency departments, as a result of medication errors, inappropriate use, misadventure and interactions. Up to half of these cases can be prevented if medicines are more affordable.
We don’t need more Canberra-bubble ‘solutions’ that don’t work in the real world. Solutions that are hard to understand, hard to implement and don’t make a difference to the patients we see struggling every day.
Pitching automation of the PBS safety net as a cost-of-living measure is a Canberra-bubble solution. It doesn’t help Australians at the counter. Patients need cost of living relief paycheque to paycheque at the cash register not at the end of the calendar year when a safety net kicks in.
Pharmacists know this and patients know this, why doesn't Canberra?
Professor Trent Twomey is a Cairns Pharmacist and National President Pharmacy Guild of Australia.