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Thats great.
I wasn't talking about a specific physical product per say (i.e. multivitamin reccomendations etc.), but the product being the 'med review', paperwork etc. Especially if patients were on a topical cream 3 months ago, naproxen 2 months ago, and most recently a nasal spray, tylenol 3 and amoxil. Med reviews for these guys are pointless, yet I see them being done on people all the time when I pull Pharmanets on patients while I'm in hospital (a note of caution, it's gotten to the point now where a few of us are REPORTING these types of med reviews to the college).
Don't get me wrong, I think our job is important in the community and I don't like the sleezy way of doing it either, hence why my numbers are quite below par. I do however, make up for my shortcomings in adaptations, immunizations and other things that I think are actually useful and time saving for patients (couple common examples being patanol --> pataday interchanging because it's on manufacturer short, flonase/nasonex to mylan-beclomethasone for full pharmacare coverage for those that cannot afford, list goes on).
It's hard for majority of companies to follow the rules of integrity because they just can not sustain themselves, they will starve, especially if they are independent low volume stores to begin with. When we go the way of Ontario and have 0% rebates eventually, these guys can either do tonnes of med reviews to feed their families (and I'll bet hard money that 60-80% of these reviews would not be necessary), or they can follow their integrity and shut down shop to join a corporation paying them 30$/hour or less.
In an ideal world, integrity should = employability, but I think very soon, this might not be the case, the bottom line for most corporations and even independents is numbers, numbers, numbers. If someone can bring that in while keeping their integrity, thats great, but just from the viewpoint I've developed through hearsay about how to boost numbers (of MR's), I get the impression that individuals pulling in 10+ med reviews per week care more for their job and career goals than they do for actual patients. I would be happy if you could change my viewpoint on that to help make me better at my job.
It was disappointing to me while I was in school that even one of our guest lecturers from CPSBC told us that if a patient does not meet the 5 drug criteria for coverage, just recommend that they take a calcium and vitamin D to make their pharmanet total 5 drugs so we could bill for it.
I am praying for the day to come soon where this med review thing goes down the drain, and the government starts reimbursing us for skills where we are actually able to offer something more valuable to society.
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