Do You Understand Dispensing Doctor Dispensing?

A dispensing doctor practice is in the unique position in that they both write the prescription, after making a clinical judgement of the situation, and then dispense the medication to the patient. Dispensing Doctor dispensing is heavily regulated and due to these regulations dispensing doctors are not rising, nor are ever likely too.

Dispensing doctors can only dispense to patients under a strict set of criteria and the premises from which they dispense are heavily regulated too. Approximately 7%* of all prescription items dispensed in primary care are dispensed by a dispensing doctor.

According to the Dispensing Doctors’ Association, dispensing doctors provide “primary healthcare to nearly nine million (8.7m) UK rural patients. Nearly 3.6 million of these patients live remotely from a community pharmacy; at the patient’s request dispensing doctors are allowed to dispense the medicines they prescribe for these patients.”

But as Pharma employees do you understand dispensing doctors and how they work? You really need to understand the basics of dispensing doctor dispensing as it will affect how you deal with them in your day to day role.

Ensuring the Practice Gets Paid for Everything It Dispenses

Every month dispensing doctors bundle up their prescriptions and submit them to the pricing authority in order to receive reimbursement for dispensing those medicines and devices. This is a vital part of the work of a dispensing practice and if they get it wrong it can cost them a lot of money in lost income.

So what happens if the prescription has been incorrectly submitted for payment?

The answer is the prescription may be referred back to the practice for further clarification or worse still the prescription will be refused for payment meaning that the specific item has been purchased by the practice and that purchase price will NOT be reimbursed. If this is an expensive item or if this happens regularly it can mount up to a significant amount over a year for the practice.

Some things which can cause a prescriptions being returned are:

               No prescriber signature

               No quantity (or strength where necessary) stated

               No presentation stated

               Generic prescription not listed in the Drug Tariff Part VIIIA

               “Blacklisted” item

               “SLS” item not endorsed

               Appliances including dressings not listed in Part IXA

This list covers the most common reasons why prescription forms are referred back but there are plenty of other reasons.

If you are interested in Drug Tariff training, or want to know more about dispensing doctors please email [email protected] for an informal conversation

*Ref: https://www.dispensingdoctor.org/dispensing-practice/