Could somebody please clarify for me rules/regulations (if there are any) regarding supplying a branded products againt generic scripts. That probably didn't make an awful lot of sense
but I'm thinking along the lines of instances were doctors prescribe products generically e.g diclofenac/co-codamol and the patient is adamant they have to have the branded product such as voltarol or kapake. We've had an incident in our pharmacy recently were a lady was adamant that hert GP wanted her to have Voltarol but had prescribed generically (the PCT has advised them it's cheaper and the receptionist had even written a note to the lady to say it was the same thing). Normally we will try and accomadate the patient as we'd rather not lose the customer but in this case we didn't have any Voltarol in stock only generic and she's now very unhappy, having gone back to the GP saying we'd refused to supply her.
I guess what I'm getting at is while we do try and accomadate patient's who request specific brands I find it a bit irritating that the GP can prescribe generically so it looks better money wise on their budget but if we dispense a branded product against the generic script we are, in most cases, losing money.
Has anyone else got any suggestions or have I completely got the wrong end of the stick about how we're paid?
I just remember the last company I worked for was very up on brand support deals and you had to give certain brands if the script was written generically e.g. salamol rather than ventolin (that caused so many problems as all the patients had been on Ventolin for years!) - I know there are probably much more important things to be worrying about but I'm feeling quite a lot of pressure to improve the money side of my branch and a few tips/ides/opinions would be much appreciated

I guess what I'm getting at is while we do try and accomadate patient's who request specific brands I find it a bit irritating that the GP can prescribe generically so it looks better money wise on their budget but if we dispense a branded product against the generic script we are, in most cases, losing money.
Has anyone else got any suggestions or have I completely got the wrong end of the stick about how we're paid?


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