【Doctors talk freely. Painted benevolence]Medical insurance doubts: Case (4)

Separation of prescribing and dispensing (called Separation of prescribing and dispensing in English) refers to a system in which prescribing and dispensing drugs are performed by different people. I believe many readers will be familiar with the term separation of medicine.

Professional division of labor and cooperation between doctors and pharmacists

Currently, there are many countries in the world (such as Asian countries, such as Taiwan and Japan, or Western countries such as Australia and the United States). These areas stipulate that only pharmacists can provide scheduled drugs to the public, and pharmacists cannot form business partnerships or doctors with doctors. Benefit transfer occurs, and doctors and pharmacists are regulated by different regulatory agencies.

In principle, the division of medicine is a professional division of labor between doctors and pharmacists. During the disease treatment process, doctors are responsible for diagnosis, treatment, and issuing prescriptions, while pharmacists prepare and deliver drugs according to the doctor’s prescriptions, and also provide drug consultation. Its most important significance is to enable pharmacists to exert their professional abilities, ensure patients’ medication safety, improve the professional functions of community pharmacies in the primary medical care system, improve the quality of medical services, and enable the public to receive better health care.

After seeing a doctor in a medical institution, ordinary people can choose to dispense medicine at a medical institution that employs qualified pharmaceutical personnel with the prescription written by the doctor. According to the current medical situation in our country, in fact, the vast majority of public medical institutions and large private medical centers implement the system of medical separation, leaving only some private clinics that are not yet equipped with pharmacist services. The reason may be related to the number of pharmacists and some political considerations.

One morning, when I was about to enter the clinic and start seeing patients, Ms. D, who was following me, suddenly said to me: “Good morning, Dr. Huang, this morning’s Hemi patient, according to the latest regulations of his insurance company When you see a doctor here, you can’t get medicine from the pharmacy in our hospital after seeing the doctor. Dr. Huang needs to give him the prescription so that he can go to a specific pharmacy near his home to buy medicine, so that he can get the money paid by Insurance Company X Medication costs.”

Since this is the latest regulation of Insurance Company Your insurance company medicine, so insurance company X will pay for it.”

“I saw that your monthly drug cost is more than a thousand ringgit. So you can only go outside to get medicine according to its regulations. Otherwise, you can only go to a government hospital to continue to see a doctor and get medicine. Yes.” I said to patient Hermie.

“Dr. Huang, I am nearly 80 years old and I only have a little pension every month. I can’t spend my own money to buy medicines in your pharmacy. I think I can only go to the designated pharmacy to buy medicines.” He Patient Mi said.

Patient welfare should be the starting point

I thought the patient’s matter would end there, but I didn’t expect that a few days later, I would receive a call from him asking for help at the outpatient clinic. He said that the town A where he lived did not have a pharmacy designated by insurance company X. It took a lot of effort to find out that there was a specific pharmacy in town B. I finally called a taxi and went to the Pharmacy in Town B, only to find that some medicines were missing. I couldn’t get the medicines I needed, so I had to call for help.

After understanding the ins and outs of the matter, I had no choice but to ask him to go to the public hospital to get medicine, otherwise he would have to come to the hospital to buy medicine at his own expense. Thinking of this, I really felt sympathy for the Hemi patient. Afterwards, I actively reported to the hospital and Insurance Company X that this move was really inconvenient for the patient.

In general, it is most convenient and cost-effective for patients to see a doctor and get medicine in the same place, that is, go to the pharmacy to get medicine from the pharmacist immediately after seeing the doctor. Besides, in private medical centers, the medical branch has been in practice for many years. I hope that insurance companies can think more about the welfare of patients and not do everything for profit (especially to save money), so that patients will not complain. Insurance companies Only then can we go further.

(Guangming Daily/Doctor Column‧Author: Huang Xueqian)

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