Private prescriptions from Boots

benjus

The company I work for provides a private GP just opposite the office that's usually more convenient than going to my NHS GP.

I went there today with a minor complaint and was given a private prescription for a (prescription-only) medicine. I went straight to the local Boots and bought it. I was surprised to see that the cost of the medicine was exactly the same as an NHS prescription - £7.65. Back in the office I looked at an online pharmacy and saw that it was being sold for £1.86.

Does Boots have a policy of rounding up the cost of low-value private prescription items to the level of an NHS prescription? If so, this seems like profiteering to me.

Any other experiences of this?

Toothsmith

Profiteering just like the NHS do!

I write private prescriptions for my patients, and a Boots pharmacy next to local health centre is the nearest place to my practice.

As far as I'm aware, they just charge cost of medication + £2-3 dispensing charge.

I think it's up to individual stores.

benjus

The clear difference with the NHS is that if the medicine had cost £100, Boots would have charged me £100 for the private prescription, whereas I'd have paid £7.65 to get it on an NHS prescription.

I think I'll email them and see what their official line is. I've no idea what other pharmacies do.

Mojisola

Our local pharmacist will always tell people who have to pay for their prescriptions if it would be cheaper to buy the item off the shelf but they're not obliged to.

patchwork_cat

Oh the irony of toothsmith's post! A dentist that only takes private patients commenting on a pharmacy that only receives 70p reimbursement for every NHS patient's prescription making a bit of money out of a private patient.

We would be in a sorry state if all pharmacists said they couldn't take NHS scripts anymore as they can't afford to dispense them for 70p!

benjus

Mojisola wrote: »

Our local pharmacist will always tell people who have to pay for their prescriptions if it would be cheaper to buy the item off the shelf but they're not obliged to.

I believe Boots also does this, but this item was not available over the counter. So I had to buy it from a proper pharmacy that dispenses prescriptions, but I could have shopped around.

Nicki

I've had cheap private prescriptions dispensed at Boots on lots of occasions and always been charged the cost price, not rounded up to the NHS price. But each pharmacy chain can decide for themselves how much to charge for any drug privately whether prescription or otherwise, and online pharmacies have far lower overheads so would usually be cheaper.

Think yourself lucky perhaps it was only a few pounds difference. For women having IVF treatment the difference in cost between different pharmacies for the same drugs runs into the high hundreds sometimes :eek: Always worth shopping around with a private script if you have time.

Toothsmith

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Oh the irony of toothsmith's post! A dentist that only takes private patients commenting on a pharmacy that only receives 70p reimbursement for every NHS patient's prescription making a bit of money out of a private patient.

We would be in a sorry state if all pharmacists said they couldn't take NHS scripts anymore as they can't afford to dispense them for 70p!

Well, I hope that little dig made you feel better.

And free of charge as well!

benjus

I wrote an email to Boots and just got a call from them.

Apparently their policy in their London stores for private prescriptions is to charge either the NHS prescription charge or the retail price of the medication, whichever is higher.

Won't be doing that again if I can help it...