E-drug: Siting policies for retail/community pharmacies (cont'd)
---------------------------------------------
In Australia there is no legislation to prevent opening a pharmacy.
The Federal Government restricts the number of 'Approvals' to
dispense prescriptions under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.
Thus if you open a pharmacy and do not have an Approval, you
can dispense scripts but you don't get reimbursement from the
Government. Since 80% + prescriptions are usually reimbursed,
this essentially restricts the number of pharmacies.
The issuing of 'Approvals' is subject to distance from other
pharmacies, and so forth. Several years ago the Government
reduced the number of Approved pharmacies (and thus the number
of pharmacies) by cutting the number of Approvals and offering
'redundancies' to close shop.
Many pharmacists now buy small, old, non-profitable shops just so
they can get the 'Approval number' (as these are transferable ) so
they can open another shop elsewhere!!
David Newby
Newcastle, Australia
E-mail: mddan@cc.newcastle.edu.au
--
Send mail for the `E-Drug' conference to `e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.
Mail administrative requests to `majordomo@usa.healthnet.org'.
For additional assistance, send mail to: `owner-e-drug@usa.healthnet.org'.