Pharmacy fee for new drugs to be hidden in bills again
The controversial €6 which patients have to pay their pharmacist to explain how to use medicine will no longer be listed as a separate item on the bill, the Dutch healthcare authority NZA said on Thursday.
The NZA hopes that hiding the fee in the price of the drugs will stop patients taking their anger out on pharmacists when confronted with the extra charge.
The change will be introduced in 2016. It will be up to pharmacists to determine if they feel the patient needs to be told how to take the drugs, the NZA said.
The Dutch pharmacists’ association KNMP said in July that 40% of pharmacies now had to deal with aggressive customers, compared with 9% before the fees were introduced in 2014.
The fee was introduced at the beginning of last year in a move the health ministry said would improve transparency.
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