Misunderstanding of the facts

Dear Editor:

I have been reading with interest the distressed stories from patients trying to get repeat prescriptions. There is, unfortunately, a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts.

This is not fake news which is aimed to mislead, but a failure of physicians, pharmacists and health authorities to appropriately inform patients.

A physician can prescribe medications for up to one year, but no more than three months can be dispensed at a time. This makes sense. It would be neither safe nor fiscally responsible to dispense 365 days of medications of any type. Over a year there is a risk of theft or accidental loss. With some medications that can be a lot of money. (For example, Lipitor, $704.)

A reasonable protocol for long term stable patients is for the physician to see the patient once a year, and at that time prescribe “name and dose of drug - Mitte 90 - repeat x 3 at 90 day intervals.”

This would not work for every patient by any means; some will need to be seen every three months or even more frequently.

An opportunity was lost in 2001 and subsequently when a binding arbitrator suggested that a fee of one-quarter of an office visit would be appropriate to cover the family physician’s time, responsibility and staff help to renew prescriptions over the phone. This binding arbitration was rejected by the provincial government at that time, and so the system is still having to bear the cost of office visit fees for many prescription renewals — large or small.

It is not widely known that pharmacists are now able to repeat selected long-term prescriptions — dispensing up to 90 days at a time, and totalling up to one year from the date of the original prescription, even if this did not specify repeats. For this, the pharmacist receives an appropriate fee.

In light of this change, I would hope that pharmacists can pick up the challenge, and lineups at the clinics will become shorter. Chris Pengilly retired family physician Victoria