E-drug: Siting policies for retail/community pharmacies (cont'd)
---------------------------------------------
In New Zealand retail pharmacies need a contract with the Health
Funding Authority (HFA) to be able to be reimbursed for
prescriptions. All pharmacies therefore have contracts. Most of
them have a "Section 51 contract" which is a general contract
under Section 51 of the Health and Disabilities Services Act but
some pharmacies have negotiated separate "flat fee" contracts with
the HFA. The HFA is currently limiting the number of new contracts
issued to pharmacies which in fact limits the number of
pharmacies. In an attempt to increase the efficiency of the
pharmacy distribution system, the HFA has also offered incentives
to pharmacists to close/amalgamate. The purpose is to reduce the
number of pharmacies, not pharmacists. A few examples of such
amalgamations exist in the Northern Region. The HFA then
guarantees that it will not grant new contracts within a certain
radius from that pharmacy for a certain period.
The HFA is currently negotiating a new contracting arrangement
with the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand. This will comprise of a
"flat fee" type contract and further incentives to rationalise the
number of pharmacies. These negotiations are however very
difficult but we hope to be able to report later on the results of
these negotiations.
Hendrik Griessel
Health Funding Authority
Auckland
New Zealand
E-mail: hendrikg@hfan.govt.nz
--
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'.