Pharmacy Daily | HMR agreement reached

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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