This article**[Beijing Popularization of Law];
Recently, on search engines and social platforms, related topics such as "a cold costs 2,000 yuan", "pharmacy drugs are three or four times more expensive than those sold online", "pharmacies buy drugs and are tied to a bunch of drugs" and other related topics have frequently sparked discussions. The reporter conducted an investigation and interview.
The medicine you sell is nearly 3 times more expensive than the ** on the Internet!A woman walked out of the pharmacy with her child after buying medicine, stayed at the door for a few minutes and quickly returned to the store, pointing to her mobile phone and saying to the clerk.
This is a scene that this reporter recently saw in a pharmacy in Chaoyang District, Beijing. It turned out that the woman wanted to buy a box of ** cold oral liquid, and the pharmacy staff recommended a "good" medicine to her, priced at 168 yuan, and recommended another medicine to use together, with a total price of 226 yuan. After the woman paid, she walked out of the pharmacy and searched for ** with her mobile phone at the door and found that the price of the 168 yuan drug on the online drug sales platform was 59 yuan, which was 109 yuan cheaper than the physical store. The woman returned to the pharmacy for evaluation, and the dispute ended with a return and refund.
In recent years, it is not uncommon for online drugs to be much cheaper than physical pharmacies, and pharmacists to tie in drugs have led to a significant increase in the cost of drug purchases for consumers.
The offline price is much higher than that online.
The phenomenon of tying drugs is prominent.
Yang Yang, a citizen of Beijing, has been diagnosed with gout for nearly a year and needs to take febuxostat for a long time. Previously, he had been buying medicine in physical pharmacies, and the unit price of a box of 40mg 10 tablets of febuxostat tablets was 55 yuan. Recently, he checked on the online drug sales platform and found that the price of the same drug was 33$8.
He calculated an account: you can buy it online for free, with a delivery fee of 5 yuan and a packaging fee of 05 yuan, 2 yuan off for new customers in the store, and the final unit price is 373 yuan, buy more cheaper, so I placed an order online, and received the medicine 40 minutes later.
Many interviewees said that they had similar experiences: buying blood pressure medication at a pharmacy was more than 3 times higher than the same model on the InternetIt costs only 8 yuan to buy licorice tablets online, and 19 yuan ...... sold at pharmacies"The medicine in the physical store is ridiculously expensive" has become the common voice of everyone.
For this kind of phenomenon, Du Xiujun, a lawyer at Beijing Zhongwen Law Firm, pointed out that according to the provisions of the law, goods and services, in addition to the guidance price or pricing that must be applied in accordance with the law, are subject to market regulation, which is independently formulated by the operator according to the cost and market supply and demand. For drugs, except for the first class of psychotropic drugs and the first class of psychotropic drugs, the market price of other drugs is regulated, so pharmacies have the right to decide on their own sales. However, self-pricing should also be based on the relationship between market supply and demand, and the first range should be reasonably determined. "It's normal for the price of drugs in pharmacies to be a little higher, but if it's too high, it's unreasonable. ”
If pharmacies maliciously raise prices and make huge profits, it is suspected of violating the provisions of the Drug Administration Law, which stipulates that "drug trading enterprises and medical institutions shall be formulated in accordance with the principles of fairness, reasonableness, honesty and trustworthiness, and consistent quality and price, to provide reasonable drugs for users, and to prohibit profiteering, monopoly and fraud", as well as the law stipulates that "clearly marking prices, prohibiting market manipulation, price gouging, and promoting goods to be too high". Du Xiujun said.
According to the "Provisions on Administrative Punishment of Illegal Acts", if a business operator violates the provisions of the ** Law by selling or purchasing goods or providing services by means such as raising or lowering the grade, and raising or lowering the ** in disguise, it shall be ordered to make corrections, confiscate the illegal gains, and impose a fine of less than 5 times the illegal gains, and the business license may be revoked if it is serious.
In order to complete a performance review.
The pharmacist turns on the sales pitch mode.
Why are online medicines "cheaper" than physical pharmacies?
Liu Xin (pseudonym), a manager of a chain pharmacy in Hunan, told reporters that first of all, the operating costs are different, and in order to attract more consumers, physical pharmacies will generally choose to be in the most important lots, and they also need to recruit staff with drug knowledge, and the store rent and labor costs will be relatively high. Selling drugs online does not require excessive costs, only the normal operation of the store is required, and sometimes one person can complete multiple tasks.
The second is that there is serious competition on online platforms. There are many stores selling the same medicine, and in order to attract customers, many stores will adopt various preferential methods, such as full reduction, rebates, newcomer coupons, etc. Liu Xin said that at the same time, online is generally the direct hair of manufacturers, most of which take the way of small profits and quick turnover, and in this marketing model, ** will also be depressed.
According to Kang Zhen, executive vice chairman of the Rational Drug Use Committee of the China Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the first level of drugs in physical pharmacies is higher than that of online is just a difference in the commercial operation mode, and the behavior of tying drugs is because of "not enough to eat", so it tries its best to let consumers buy more drugs.
In China, due to the lag in the development of the pharmacist profession, the professional survival of pharmacists does not rely on the compensation mechanism of service fees, that is, it refers to the international use of 'prescription dispensing fees, prescription review fees or cognitive judgment fees, patient education fees and drug management fees' and other forms of compensation, generally purchased by the national medical insurance or insurance companies pharmacist services. Therefore, although pharmacies have GSP certification, they are only the attributes of ordinary stores and do not undertake medical service work, and pharmacies can only rely on the commodity buying and selling model to make a profit in the mark-up model, and they also need to sell more, otherwise it is difficult to survive. Kang Zhen said.
According to the latest data released by the Licensed Pharmacist Qualification Certification Center of the National Medical Products Administration, as of the end of November 2023, there are 782683 licensed pharmacists within the validity period of registration in the country, and the number of licensed pharmacists per 10,000 population is 55 people;There are 708883 licensed pharmacists registered in pharmaceutical retail enterprises, accounting for 90 of the total number of registrations6%。
According to data from the National Medical Products Administration, the number of pharmacies in China has continued to grow in recent years, and by the end of 2022, the total number of pharmacies in China was 6230,000.
Zhang Yu, who has been working as a pharmacist in Shandong for more than 10 years, feels the same way. He said that the salary of store pharmacists is composed of post salary, performance salary, sales commission, single product commission, etc., and the performance appraisal of pharmacies is mainly sales and gross profit margin. "When a licensed pharmacist working in a store gives a drug to a customer, the primary consideration is not which drug is more symptomatic, but which drug is the task variety, the gross profit margin is higher, and the pharmacist with more professionalism will take into account both profit and effect. ”
Strengthen supervision and improve legislation.
Regulate the sales behavior of pharmacies.
The interviewed industry insiders believe that in the face of the chaos of pharmacy sales, it is necessary to increase industry legislation and law enforcement. The pharmaceutical regulatory authorities should also strengthen supervision, standardize the sales behavior of pharmacies, return pharmacies to the correct positioning, and avoid them going further and further on the wrong road of excessive commercialization.
The current business model is to turn a pharmacist into a businessman, so this model needs to change urgently, and the profit point must also change. Kang Zhen said that foreign prescription drugs need to rely on the cost of dispensing and auditing, and also extend some professional services to manage patients' drug safety and drug effect monitoring, that is, the so-called pharmaceutical services, which is to solve patients' drug management problems.
Is it valuable that the work done by pharmacists will affect the change in the outcome of the disease?If you have value, you have to pay for it. But now that stores are full of free services, free means that there may be a trap to induce consumers to buy all kinds of drugs through free. Kang Zhen said that for the long-term development of the pharmacist industry, the most important thing is to establish a standardized pharmacist service model, and not be trapped by the current business model.
The reporter noted that in order to ensure the safe use of drugs by patients, on June 6, 2023, the General Office of the People's Republic of China issued the "2023 Legislative Work Plan", which mentioned that "it is ready to be submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for deliberation on the draft of the Pharmacist Law".
Industry insiders believe that the promulgation of the Pharmacist Law will clarify the responsibilities, rights and obligations of pharmacists from the legal level, provide more complete legal protection for the pharmacist industry, and allow the majority of pharmacists to have laws to follow.
In Kang Zhen's view, the introduction of the pharmacist law will bring great changes to the licensed pharmacist industry, but for social pharmacies, it is also necessary to equip the corresponding pharmacy law.
The function and attribute positioning of pharmacies are very important, and only by clarifying the main responsibility of pharmacies can we fundamentally change the problem of pharmacist sales. Kang Zhen said that first of all, a reasonable service business model can be adopted to replace the price increase model of goods, and the corresponding cost compensation for pharmacists' services can be given through medical insurance and commercial insuranceSecondly, it is necessary to ensure the service behavior of pharmacists, clarify the prescription dispensing specifications, and use the business model of prescription business as the support.
He said that China's medical reform fully implements the drug zero difference rate system, the medical insurance payment model is also reforming, and the medical insurance payment and compensation for medical service fees have also begun to include pharmacies in the scope of outpatient reimbursement. However, medical institutions can be reimbursed for medical insurance costs despite the zero difference rate.
In the future, social pharmacies can be considered as an extension of the medical service system, so that the majority of licensed pharmacists can give full play to their true value, and can also promote the healthy development of the entire medical system. Kang Zhen said that medical reform needs to be systematically considered to build a new benefit distribution mechanism, not only considering the interests of medical institutions, but also community pharmacies should be included in the construction of public health and service systems.
Du Xiujun suggested that consumers should refine their "sharp eyes", be optimistic about their money bags, and "shop around" to develop scientific screening ability and form a reasonable and pragmatic consumption concept. The pharmaceutical industry and health departments should also strengthen positive publicity, and guide consumers to improve their awareness in the field of basic medicine through various forms such as popular science promotion. In addition, it is necessary to establish a legal aid system for consumer rights protection, take multiple measures to lower the threshold for consumer rights protection, and jointly purify the consumer market environment.
*: CCTV network, rule of law**.