THE HEALTH Service Executive has advised consumers to seek refunds from pharmacies where they are being charged more for common drugs than applies under State-funded schemes.
Both Minister for Health Mary Harney and the HSE advised patients to shop around for their medicines after it emerged that many pharmacies are not passing on the benefits of savings in the price of commonly used drugs to non-medical card customers.
A HSE spokeswoman said it had advised people to seek a refund if they were being charged more than the drug price listed on the HSE website, which includes a 20 per cent retail mark-up. Many pharmacies are still charging customers without medical cards the 50 per cent mark-up that applied before cost savings were introduced last year.
Ms Harney said she was “most concerned” that some pharmacists were not passing on these margin reductions to patients whose drug spending was never met by the HSE, in particular, those whose monthly expenditure was below the €120 per month threshold under the Drugs Payment Scheme (DPS).
However, the Irish Pharmacy Union said yesterday it was up to individual pharmacists to decide what they charged private customers.
This was entirely separate from the amounts the State paid for medicines under the various drugs schemes it operates.
Ms Harney said she had raised her concerns with the pharmacy union: “It remains very disappointing that some pharmacists are continuing to withhold the benefit of the lower prices from some of their customers. The public deserve better in these difficult economic times.”
The price of hundreds of the most commonly prescribed off-patent medicines dropped by 40 per cent last year after the Minister pushed through a reduction in mark-ups.
While this has delivered savings to the State of more than €200 million a year, it appears that few non-medical card holders have benefited.
Almost 1.5 million people have medical cards and do not have to pay for their medicines. Another 1.6 million have DPS cards, whereby the State refunds the cost of medicines costing over €120 in a single month.
The higher mark-up still applying to many drug purchases means this limit is reached more quickly, with consequent cost implications for the State.
Both the Minister and the health service said yesterday that the reduction in the cost of medicines should be of benefit to anyone holding a drugs payment card, regardless of whether they reach the €120 threshold.
The HSE has asked pharmacists to display the price of individual items dispensed under the scheme to ensure transparency for consumers.
The issue featured on The Consumer Show on RTÉ this week, which found that 67 out of 88 pharmacies surveyed were applying the higher margin of 50 per cent to non-medical card customers.
The prices the HSE pays for drugs are listed on pcrs.ie.