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I'm not joking. They, pharmacies and hospitals, are already coming up with formulas for pharmacist service.
Some doctors bill for refill requests or filling out immunization forms.
That's why everyone is having issues with the potential new medicare payment structure. That's why there is the lawsuit barring its implentation. It would require a number of pharmacies to accept payment below true acquistion cost of medicines. It is harder to determine a true cost to a service than to an actual good. I can tell you how much each pill costs a pharmacy. The dispensing fee, for most insurances, is currently about half of the true cost to dispense it. Average fixed cost to dispense a prescription is $8-$10, and average dispensing fee is $3-$5 per prescription.
Like MDs cannot be replace with supercomputers in which you put in all the symptoms and a diagnosis pops out, pharmacists cannot be replace with vending machines. Furthermore, every medicine vending machine for use in a community situation I've ever seen has no more than 100 drugs in unit of use bottles. The states which allow vending machines regulate it must be in unit of use bottles. In Illinois, you can only use the vending machines for refills anyway. If you want a rare drug or rare number of tablets, you can't get it.
Some doctors bill for refill requests or filling out immunization forms.
That's why everyone is having issues with the potential new medicare payment structure. That's why there is the lawsuit barring its implentation. It would require a number of pharmacies to accept payment below true acquistion cost of medicines. It is harder to determine a true cost to a service than to an actual good. I can tell you how much each pill costs a pharmacy. The dispensing fee, for most insurances, is currently about half of the true cost to dispense it. Average fixed cost to dispense a prescription is $8-$10, and average dispensing fee is $3-$5 per prescription.
Like MDs cannot be replace with supercomputers in which you put in all the symptoms and a diagnosis pops out, pharmacists cannot be replace with vending machines. Furthermore, every medicine vending machine for use in a community situation I've ever seen has no more than 100 drugs in unit of use bottles. The states which allow vending machines regulate it must be in unit of use bottles. In Illinois, you can only use the vending machines for refills anyway. If you want a rare drug or rare number of tablets, you can't get it.