This appeared a few days ago.
Electronic script scanning incentive announced
Pharmacists will be able to claim up to $2000 per pharmacy if they use electronic prescription scanning systems, as part of a new incentive announced today.
The decision to incentivise the use of Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions (ETP), comes after months of negotiations between the Pharmacy Guild of Australia and the Department of Health and Ageing, and will be applicable for the 2013/14 financial year.
The new incentive, which uses existing Fifth Community Pharmacy Agreement funds, is aimed at driving ETP use in pharmacies to improve quality use of medicines and reducing the number of adverse medication events.
Kos Sclavos, Guild national president, welcomed the new incentive, saying it would encourage more pharmacies to adjust their workflow to facilitate the scanning of barcodes on all electronic prescriptions.
“This is a significant and cost effective step towards boosting the use of electronic prescription technology, reaping tangible benefits in terms of accuracy, efficiency, and patient medication management,” he said.
More here:
So to stop spending time re-typing prescriptions into their dispensing systems and making the whole process safer and quicker for them and the patients, the pharmacists are being give a donation of $2000.
It is amazing this can happen in the Government caretaker period but I am assured it's part of portfolio management utilising an already established agreement.
Talk about being money for nothing!
David.
5 comments:
That's taxpayers' dollars for "front-line services" for you!
The Drug Cartel gouging taxpayers' dollars at its finest...
Tear up the 5th CPA and free up the pharmacy market to true "competition" for the benefit of consumers but most importantly the Taxpayers!
Will we see a new Health Minister that kicks the AMA and Pharmacy Guild out of its bed and starts representing the "interests" of the polity that put them in power to do so in the first place??
Not holding one's breath!
Dear Mr Sclavos in the Brisbane pharmacies which you own what percentage of original scripts dispensed are sourced from the escript exchanges?
9/05/2013 04:36:00 AM GOOD QUESTION.
The Health Department has access to this information. It would be advisable for them to check out Mr Sclavos - just in case he is advocating the widespread use of something which he might not be using !!!!! heaven forbid that should be the case. I mean, if it were so why on earth would the Government ever bother listening to him again. I'm not suggesting it is so, BUT if you never look you'll never know.
Oh, and by the way, perhaps the Department should check out ALL those pharmacists in the Guild who hold positions at State Level for they are the ones who should be pushing the widespread uptake of eScripts. To do so they need to be seen to be leading by example.
Why not pursue this exploitation/benefit out of efficiency and effectiveness gains and cease skiving off the Taxpayer!
Why not have the ATO pay all taxpayers and businesses who submit their tax returns electronically??
Why not have treasury pay all financial institutions who provide Internet channels to their customers??
If you think these policies are ludicrous, then why on earth is the Pharmacy Guild getting this Taxpayers' money for their own bread and butter services that they're the primary beneficiary for anyway!
Where are the Cartel Busters when the taxpayers need them?
The worse part is that the ePrescribing-barcode feature (a Guild initiative) has been active by default on pharmacy software - so un knowingly the public have been 'having their prescription information' transferred to a third-party for purposes other than for which it was provided - hmm Privacy Law violation?
And - it seems that whiles one of the leading Pharmacy software products can have the customers 'permission' to opt-in switched off - one of other leading products does not give the option (last checked a month ago - but they have been aware of this for over a year!!). Oh ... and even with the software that does allow customers to not provide their information to a pharmacy guild system (for which we have not had any real independant review - only the DoHA and Guild sponsored work), it is not uncommon to be challenged by the Pharmacy staff - who often claim it 'is a Govt thing', or have no idea how the Guild are involved, or have no idea of what security their product actually has - e.g. no idea that the databases are usually configured to require a customer file be kept- and not just the transaction record that is required by laws.. their awareness of security is a JOKE... like the initiative a few years ago that allowed people to submit Script information via a website- where only the payment detail was actually encrypted, and the site was actually hosted on a Amazon Cloud in Singapore - oh ... they did put a small disclaimer in the bottom of the page somewhere... eventually...
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