WINNIPEG – Panic and confusion aren’t usually found amid the orderly shelves of the Ste. Rose Pharmacy.
But for the past month, pharmacist Todd Mereniuk has had to dispense advice about massive changes to a government drug program as he fills prescriptions.
Mereniuk said many of his customers are concerned about the April 1 change of Pharmacare deductibles from fixed levels to an income-based formula and need for annual applications. The government planned to announce the change at the end of March, but was forced to do it on March 20 when 15,000 brochures were accidentally mailed out.
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Ken Brown, consultant for Manitoba Health, said the government will save about $20 million with the new program. But the head of the licensing body for pharmacists said he thinks it will save a lot more.
Stu Wilcox, registrar of the Manitoba Pharmaceutical Association, said tying deductibles to income is fair in principle.
“But they have set the figure so high that they’ve eliminated a lot of people who could have used their help,” Wilcox said.
Avoid paying later
The premature announcement caused stampedes to pharmacies as people who suspected they might not qualify for the program stocked up.
“People were almost in a panic,” Wilcox said, adding the rush was a waste of drugs and money. Some people bought over a year’s worth of medication.
Pharmacists weren’t consulted or warned about the change.
Mereniuk said he heard about it on the radio while working in the pharmacy in the west-central Manitoba town. Almost immediately, the confusion began.
Mereniuk said he has spent hours explaining the new system. He has made presentations in senior citizens’ homes and gone to customers’ houses to help them fill out new application forms.
Seniors will benefit
The new system will help many of his senior customers, who are on low fixed incomes, he said. For example, a couple living on a pension of $10,000 will have a $140 deductible. The government pays for all medication above that amount. The former deductible was a fixed $134 and seniors paid for 30 percent of expenses beyond that amount.
“So basically, I had to explain to all of my senior customers, when they got worried over reports in the media, that there would be no advantage to buying many months of their medications ahead of time if they are only living off a pension,” Mereniuk said.
Farm families may also benefit, he said, because net income from their tax returns is often quite low because of high expenses.
But the change hits middle and high-income families pretty hard, Mereniuk said. A family of four with an income of $50,000 will have to pay for the first $1,230 of medication.
If one child is diabetic, the family will spend in the neighborhood of $1,500 on medication. Pharmacare would pick up only $270 of the tab. Under the old system, the family would have paid less than $745 for the same medication.
Wilcox said if the program stays as it is now, the confusion will rise next March when consumers realize they have to start building another deductible on April 1.
“They’re going to be doing the stampeding again into pharmacies with huge prescriptions from their doctors. It’s really a total waste.”
