News | Sunday, 13 September 2009

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Pay for your medicines now, get reimbursed later

Pharmacy Of Your Choice scheme suspended pending further evaluation

Karl Stagno-Navarra
Government is reportedly considering a proposal made by medicine importers to revise the free medicine scheme, and ask for patients to pay for their prescribed drugs and then apply to the government for reimbursement.
The proposal has been formally presented by industry leader Reginald Fava, a former president of the Chamber of Commerce.
A similar model is used in many European countries, and serves as a measure for government to curb wastage and abuse.
But independent experts have told this paper that the measure – coming from medicine importers – “is nothing but an exercise to cash in on their stocks rather than supplying government with medicines and wait months to get paid.”
So far government owes medicine importers an estimated €30 million and it is still unknown what kind of scheme government could put in place to ensure no delays in reimbursement to patients.
The proposal is reportedly being “twinned” with more fine-tuning to the Pharmacy of Your Choice Scheme (POYC) that was recently launched, whereby patients would redeem their free medicine from their local pharmacy rather than queue at the hospital pharmacy.
At present 28,000 people are registered as entitled to free medicine and government is doing all it can to curb the abuses that are costing the coffers millions of euros.
The Ministry for Social Policy said it was currently evaluating the progress of the POYC, and would subsequently “be more efficient and sustainable”.
The pharmacy of your choice scheme – which enables patients to pick up their free medicines from their chosen pharmacy – had met a lack of human resources to carry out the work needed, Ray Xerri, the officer in charge of the scheme’s planning and implementation, had said back in May 2008.
Xerri had complained that the lack of human resources was having an effect on the preparations for the scheme because some 10 members of staff were needed to help in the preparation of medicine packages and a pharmacist was required too.
Although the exact number of patients entitled to medicines on the national health scheme is not known, it is thought that there are between 100,000 and 120,000 people entitled to free medicines.
Apart from offering a personalised service and cutting down on waiting, the scheme is intended to cut down on wastage. Parliamentary Secretary for Health Joe Cassar had said that an auditing service already indicates that wastage is on the decline.

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