2023-09-26 15:43:14
Many medications are currently difficult to obtain, especially tomorrow Wednesday. Between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., a number of pharmacies remain closed in protest against their predicament and the delivery bottlenecks. The Federal Association of German Pharmacists Associations (ABDA) cleverly justifies its call by saying that people need the free time to follow a speech by Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) on the Internet that is important for the profession.
He will be joining us on Wednesday at the opening of the German Pharmacists’ Day. The most important meeting of the 17 pharmacist associations and chambers from the federal states will meet in Düsseldorf until Friday with more than 300 delegates. At the center of the debates are the weak financial and human resources, location closures and supply bottlenecks due to a lack of branches and medicines.
The industry reports difficulties in obtaining more than 500 medicines. Although the Bundestag passed Lauterbach’s law against delivery bottlenecks in June, the innovations are only slowly taking effect. Now in autumn, at the beginning of the cold season, there is a lack of children’s medication. This concerns not only parents, but also doctors, pharmacists and politicians.
Lauterbach is therefore planning further novellas, which will be available exclusively to the FAZ. Amendments to the Nursing Study Strengthening Act are intended to amend Social Security Code 5 so that pharmacists and doctors can deal more flexibly with medications that are on an “urgent list of children’s medicines”. Changes to the pharmacy operating regulations serve the same purpose.
Further powers for pharmacists
Specifically, in the future, pharmacists will be able to exchange dosage forms without consulting doctors and without new prescriptions, dispense medications with the same active ingredients in a different form, or prepare a prescription themselves instead of a finished medication. The prerequisites are that the patient agrees and that the doctor does not expressly object to it.
No private prescription is required for substitution; health insurance companies pay in any case. You have no option to refuse payment or request reimbursement (retaxation). Doctors who prescribe products from the defect list do not need to fear any objections in the performance audits.
The minister also wants to promote the development of branch and branch pharmacies. In the future, the subsidiary branches will not have to maintain their own manufacturing and laboratory facilities. You are no longer subject to the obligation to provide night and emergency services. In addition, the main pharmacies will be allowed to open more branches in the future than before.
Ideas not yet finalized
The exact number is unclear; Lauterbach’s ideas are in an early stage: The amendments have not yet been coordinated with the other departments and are therefore unfinished. What is also new is that there should be the option of “telepharmacy”. Then there is no need for a licensed pharmacist to be on duty; a pharmaceutical-technical assistant is sufficient as a replacement. Lauterbach also wants to allow new working hours. “Flexible opening hours create scope for local pharmacies,” it says.
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