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The hourly rate of a technician to fix a washing machine is quoted
as being "excessive" when looked at alongside what the
pharmacist behind the dispensary bench is paid.
But is it excessive and what is it meant to cover?
It
will cover for every hour worked on the job and charged another
two hours to cover the preparation time needed and the after job
time in recording and reporting.
It then has to cover all "add ons" such as sick pay,
holiday pay, long service provision, and superannuation and workers
compensation.
It also has to fund ongoing education, registration and other
professional development tasks.
And yes the washing machine mechanic does need education, it is
a professional job.
A
simple $20 an hour can turn quickly to $60 and hour and probably
as high as $80 with all factors built in. If the proprietor of
the business was drawing a "salary" of $80,000 a year,
this could be looked on as $40 an hour if 2,000 hours a year are
worked.
Multiply this by three (3) to cover on costs and $120 an hour
could be the charge, with the formula being in line with industry
practice.
Now
take the return for doing a Home Medication Review at $140 a time.
How long should this take?
Can each hour spent be justified to the pharmacy making the claim
on the HIC for the "cost" of the accredited pharmacist
to do the review?
And if the Approved Pharmacy has no "accredited pharmacist"
on board it will have to call in one to do the clinical assessment
and write the report.
So
we area getting to a point of saying the review should not take
much longer than an hour if the return is to be measured as being
paid a reasonable fee for the task.
Maybe the fee reflects the amount of time "expected"
to be spent on the job.
Is only an hour what the governing bodies want to be taken, and
any more will mean they will be confronted with a claim for a
higher fee.
The "on costs" for the reviewer are certainly substantial
when additional registration with the AACP is considered, and
the Approved Pharmacy which has to meet the QCP guidelines.
These do not come cheaply.
There is a car to get to the "home" and computer costs
if a software package is used in the process.
However
there are probably some pharmacists who are saying that they had
the car and the computer, and the pharmacist doing the review
did not have much else to do with their time apart from act as
a PBS clerk putting prescription data into a database.
Where
to go? What to do?
This is a dilemma!
The
fee is $140 but the time taken is at least three hours on the
job, and that is not covering any overheads.
Well try doing three in three hours rather than one!
The
pharmacist behind the computer entering data or counselling the
patient maybe getting $30 an hour and how is that justified.
Probably by virtue of the $4.60 fee for ready prepared items on
the PBS.
Twelve scripts an hour and that covers the cost easily, but the
rest is not profit.
It has to cover the on costs of the dispensary, the shop and the
rest of the staff.
And don't forget the dispensary probably accounts for 60% of the
shop turnover, so don't expect the over the counter sales to prop
up an unprofitable dispensary.
This
is more of a dilemma!
The
need is to work smarter and NOT harder.
Get the tasks done that have the greatest return per hour, and
delegate to others at a lesser hourly rate the tasks which they
should be doing.
It may be that the pre-registration graduate can do the review
and the accredited person simply cast an eye over the end product
and before signing off on it.
There
have to be more ways found unless pharmacists want to fall back
into a situation of doing "something for nothing".
So
next time you the accredited employer pharmacist spend an hour
looking over a Home Medication Review (HMR), ask yourself "am
I really getting paid for this?".
It
may be that a crash course in fixing washing machines is in order!
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MANNING