Loss of jobs- category M

[Asterix]

I was reading the c+d magazine today and it had an article regarding category M and how the price cut has resulted in a lot of independent pharmacists making pharmacists redudant. What is category M and why has this only affected independents pharmacies.

What is the difference between say boots and an independent and also will this job reduancy increase in the future because one of the things that attracted me to the pharmacy course was plenty of jobs and hardly any unemployment.

[Raoul]

i always wondered how the change in re-imbursement for category M affected community pharmacy. what is special about category M ?
could a pharmacist explain it for us financially, giving some examples if possible?

[Asterix]

Originally Posted by Ray

i always wondered how the change in re-imbursement for category affected community pharmacy.
could a pharmacist elaborate it for us financially?

could you educate me on category m considering I am only in 2nd yr of mpharm.

[Raoul]

all what i know is
category M drugs are the ones that the secretary of state determines their price, i.e not normal pricing scheme like majority of drugs which are based on drugg tariff.

to be honest i am not quite sure mate :P

[Zoggite]

The Headline for this article in the C+D mentions "independent Multiples". What the Dickens are those? "independent" from what, exactly?
Can a multiple that owns 100+ shops still call itself independent, and what exactly does it mean, in particular to its employees and its customers?

[mm45]

From what I understand category M medicines are at a price determind to be the average cost of a drug from several suppliers. This rate is set by the DOH. The drug tarriff sets out the amount a pharmacy will be reimbursed per each drug, however many suppliers will sell the drug at a lower cost to increase compition, therefore the pharmacy makes a profit from the difference of what they pay for they drug and are reimbursed. However the government caught on to this and alot of a drugs price are now averaged and generally alot lower, and therefore the pharmacy makes less profit on these drugs. Hence the who ha about category M medicines.

I believe this to be the case but I am not 100%, if anyone could clarify this for me it would be great.

[Sir_Dispensalot]

Originally Posted by mm45

From what I understand category M medicines are at a price determind to be the average cost of a drug from several suppliers. This rate is set by the DOH. The drug tarriff sets out the amount a pharmacy will be reimbursed per each drug, however many suppliers will sell the drug at a lower cost to increase compition, therefore the pharmacy makes a profit from the difference of what they pay for they drug and are reimbursed. However the government caught on to this and alot of a drugs price are now averaged and generally alot lower, and therefore the pharmacy makes less profit on these drugs. Hence the who ha about category M medicines.

I believe this to be the case but I am not 100%, if anyone could clarify this for me it would be great.

mostly cat M seems to be a highly effective metaphorical wooden stick for the government to beat us round the heads with when we do things like make a profit...

[SolomonQ]

The PPA which is responsible for reimbursing pharmacies for the medicnes (and other services provided) splits up all the medicines into different categories, which determines the way the reimbursment price is calculated for the different drugs. there a category A,B,C. E and M. wont go into what the others mean in detail but
B are rare drugs, C are mostly branded or patented drugs, E are extem prepared drugs.

Category M consists of all the very common (NOT as opposed to posh, lol) medicines, produced by a range of manufacturers and widely available from different wholesalers this therefore so includes a huge majority of generics. Anything that is a generic is most liekly to be a category M drug (or A).

The DOH monitors the wholesale price of these medicnes and determines the reimbursemant price accordingly.

Now the vast majority of a pharmacy income comes from the dispensing of category M medicnes because these are the most prescribed and dispensed items. so any change to these prices would affect a pharmacy's profit.

hope that clears things up. information like this hard to come by in this forum

[DavidS]

I think "M" stands for "muppets"

[SolomonQ]

.........or megalomaniacs!!!!!!!!!!!!