Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Druggist takes on province

From the Toronto Star:
Toronto pharmacist Chaim Wrightman took his fight with the Ontario health ministry to Superior Court yesterday, in a case with potential impact on how the elderly receive medication.

The battle started over pill packs, those cases with individual compartments for medication prescribed by a doctor and divided by the pharmacist into daily and weekly doses. In Ontario, most users of the packs are covered under the Ontario Drug Benefit Program.

While the battle started over pill packs, it has now escalated into a fight over the pharmacist's right to bill under the massive drug benefit plan that costs Ontario $3 billion a year.

Wrightman had wanted to keep dispensing the packs and being paid for it. The Ontario government first tried to stop him in 2007 by ordering him to reimburse $250,000 in dispensing fees on pill packs over seven years. ...more

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