• Following on from our training with yourself, we are now dispensing our Zoladex on site instead of sending the patient to a local pharmacy- am I correct in thinking that we will class it as a PA item and the patient will not have to pay the prescription charge?
• You are correct, Zoladex is classed as a Personally Administered item and no prescription charge applies for the patient. Pharmacy however do not have the facility to ‘PA’ items and so if the prescription had gone to a local pharmacy, then the patient would have to pay (if they were of paying status).
• In your last newsletter, you talked about Epilim having Special Container rules. We dispense 120 sodium valproate 200mg gastro -resistant tablets, does this mean that we are only getting paid for 100 and losing out on the 20? Due to the 120 not being 51% or more of the original pack size?
• The special container rule for Sodium Valproate are on 100 but broken down into 10 x 10 so for example if you dispensed 120 you would get paid 12 x 10 but if you dispensed 124, you would only get paid for 120. If you dispensed 126 (which is more than 51% of 10) you would get paid 13 x 10 – complicated I know!
• We have started receiving prescriptions from our G.Ps for baby milks which fall into part 2 of the Drug Tariff. Am I correct in thinking these should be dispensed by a local pharmacy?
• Yes, items which fall into Part 2 of the Drug Tariff are generally loss-making lines – DDS would suggest sending these prescriptions to a local pharmacy.