Alberta Health is now delaying plans to reduce the fees pharmacists receive for delivering COVID-19 shots until Jan 1.
Every year, pharmacists in Alberta deliver close to 1 million influenza vaccines. Since the pandemic started, they have administered over 5.6 million COVID-19 shots.
Just days before the province’s COVID-19 and fall influenza vaccination program was set to start, pharmacists were told the fee for administering COVID-19 shots would drop starting October 1st
“Pharmacists were very upset by that. We heard late in the day on Sept. 29 that things were going to be cut as of Oct. 1. It was quite a blindside,” said Randy Howden, president of the Alberta Pharmacists’ Association and owner of the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy and Compounding Centre in Crowfoot
“We have no idea why it came out at the time it did. It was quite shocking and we provided that feedback to the government.”
In 2020, pharmacists were getting a $25 fee for giving COVID-19 shots in an effort to offset the administration costs of pharmacists.
In the late September announcement, they were told that was going to drop to $17 on October 1 and down to $13 in April.
It left pharmacies scrambling to adjust.
“It would’ve caused a huge problem because of the fact that pharmacies had already planned for the next couple of months — our outreach clinics, our long-term care clinics, and all the other things that are going into providing COVID vaccinations this season,” Howden said.
“It’s a lot of staffing. It’s a lot of supplies. It’s a lot of administrative time to organize these clinics and document everything properly we had planned based on a certain reimbursement and all of a sudden they were cutting that reimbursement significantly.”
The Alberta Pharmacists’ Association said Alberta Health introduced the changes with no advanced warning and that the elimination of the funding will have an impact on patient care.
A statement on Friday from the health minister’s press secretary says Minister Adriana LaGrange and Alberta Health have continued to work with the Alberta Pharmacists’ Association and determined that the shift in fees will occur on Jan. 1, 2024, giving them more time to implement the changes.
The statement says currently, pharmacies in Alberta receive the highest fees in the country for providing a COVID-19 vaccine and that the shift will reflect the endemic status of COVID-19 in Alberta and better align with costs to provide other immunizations and bring our fees in line with other provinces.
The Alberta Pharmacists’ Association says, “Pharmacists will be fully supported to participate in this fall’s COVID-19 and Influenza season, as previously understood, at a time when public demand for vaccinations is at its greatest and pharmacists can maximize vaccination efforts.”
Beginning on Oct. 16, Albertans six months or older will be able to get a COVID-19 vaccine, with bookings opening up on Oct. 10.
Comments