HMR agreement reached
March 22, 2013
THE Pharmacy Guild of Australia
has announced that an agreement
has been reached with the
Government to resolve the
overspend which was threatening
the future of the Home Medicines
Review (HMR) program.
According to the Guild, the
agreement will see no reduction in
fees for any of the medication
management programs over
the remainder of the Fifth
Community Pharmacy Agreement.
In addition, the HMR budget will
be increased by more than 30% in
each of the next two financial
years; and the 2012/13 overspend
will be funded through a
combination of underspends in
other Agreement programs and
reductions in incentive payments
for Dose Administration Aids
and Clinical Interventions (CI) for
the remainder of this financial year.
In addition, the reductions in DAA
and CI incentives will be repaid to
community pharmacies through
increased incentive payments over
the remaining two financial years of
the Agreement; and all the
professional programs will be
closely managed to ensure they
remain within budget for the rest of
the Agreement.
According to the Guild,
medication management programs
will be subject to coning or shaping
arrangements as required to ensure
they remain within budget.
These arrangements will be
targeted at the highest volume
providers whereby payments for an
individual service provider will
be reduced once they reach a
certain volume of services.
The aim of this measure is to
maintain the sustainability of the
programs and maximise patient
access.
The vast majority of providers will
not be affected.
Final conditions include capping
of the rate of Clinical Interventions
per PBS prescription dispensed;
whilst a research project will be
commissioned to collate the clinical
evidence required to make future
recommendations regarding the
targeting criteria for HMR patient
eligibility.
MEANWHILE the PSA has
welcomed the agreement saying,
the decision ensured the valued
HMR services would continue to be
available for consumers throughout
Australia.
“We have had a period of great
uncertainty surrounding the
delivery of HMRs, uncertainty for
pharmacists and uncertainty for the
consumers who use the service,”
said the National President of PSA,
Grant Kardachi.
“This decision means we can now
move forward and build and
strengthen this service,” Kardachi
added.
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