Thousands of Central Coast residents will now be paying up to 29 per cent less for their Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) prescriptions, with the maximum PBS co-payment dropping from $42.50 to $30 from January 1.
The move marks the first co-payment reduction in the PBS’s 75-year history.
Assistant Minister for Rural and Regional Health and Member for Dobell, Emma McBride, said someone taking one medication a month could save as much as $150 every year, or a family with two or three medications a month could save as much as $300-$450 a year.
McBride popped into Kanwal Pharmacy on New Year’s Day to discuss the new arrangement with staff.
Pharmacist Pam Bellette said young families and self-funded retirees would be the big winners.
“If you have a pension card you pay $7.30 per prescription up to 30 prescriptions per calendar year and then zero,” she said.
“But if you don’t have a pension card, the co-payment can be very pricey.
“Now, instead of paying $42.50 per prescription, the most those people will pay is $30.
“If you’re filling four prescriptions, that’s a saving of almost $50 which can be spent on groceries and other essentials.”
Bellette said she had experienced customers not filling all their prescriptions on multiple occasions, with cost a likely contributing factor.
“Often a customer will ask me if they can just take half a tablet at a time or won’t fill all their prescriptions at once,” she said.
“Often they come in another time to fill remaining prescriptions.
“Sometimes working families make too much money to qualify for a pension card but not enough to meet all their needs.
“This is going to be a help to many.”
McBride said it was important that everyone on the Central Coast has access to quality, affordable health care.
“As a pharmacist who worked in our community, I know what a change like this will mean for thousands in our community,” she said.
“From January 1 medicines will be cheaper for over 89,000 people in Dobell alone, saving them more than $4.3M.
“In Robertson almost 85,000 people will benefit with a total saving of $4.6M.
“I know that cheaper medicines will make a real difference to ease the cost-of-living pressures in our community.
“The Albanese Government has delivered on our commitment to cut the cost of medications for millions of Australians.”
Health Minister Mark Butler said pharmacists had told him stories of customers coming in with a handful of prescriptions asking for advice about which script they can go without, because they can’t afford to fill them all.
“Our cheaper medicines policy will make that choice redundant for millions of Australians,” he said.
The Pharmacy Guild of Australia National President, Professor Trent Twomey, said the move will help some 19 million patients, especially those who have been struggling to afford their medicines.
“In 2019-20 we learnt that 900,000 Australian patients did not get a script filled because they could not afford it,” he said.
As health professionals, this disturbed us immensely and led to our “Affordable Medicines Now” campaign which pressured both parties to commit to lowering the cost of PBS medicines in the lead up to the last election.
“It’s a credit to our politicians that they listened to those concerns and gave a bi-partisan commitment to lower the maximum co-payment for PBS listed medicines after the election.”
But Twomey said the campaign to make medicines universally affordable is far from over.
“We are now pushing to lower the maximum co-payment of PBS medicines even further, to $19,” he said.
“Reducing the maximum co-payment to $19 will mean an additional 30 per cent of PBS medicines are covered.”
He said a national survey commissioned by the Pharmacy Guild in 2022 revealed the affordability of healthcare was the biggest hip pocket concern among polled voters.
Terry Collins
Isnt this for all people not only the Coasties