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	The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 268 No 7197 p646-648 11 May 2002	This page Reprint Photocopy
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Remuneration

Does the Health Service need my money so much?

From Mr M. Kattan, MRPharmS

Our health authority arranges for our prescriptions to be picked up by courier on the first working day of the new month which last month fell on the 2 April. On the 3 April we received our returned prescriptions from the previous month in an envelope postmarked 2 April.

Is this done deliberately by the Prescription Pricing Authority since I understand that it knows how much is due to us by the middle of the month (so it must have gone through the prescriptions)?

Not only do we have to wait three months for full payment but we also have to give the Government extra time to pay. (I was under the impression that the Government has made it conditional for companies to pay within 30 days, but this obviously does not apply to it.)

Meir Kattan
London SE24

MICHAEL KING, director of planning and corporate affairs, Prescription Pricing Authority, replies:

We recognise that the timing of returned prescriptions from one month's submissions can overlap with submission of the next. We try to make sure that, as contractors' accounts are processed, returns are sent out the same day. We also try to avoid the same contractor's accounts always being processed at the end of the month which would lead to returns always arriving after the next month's prescriptions are submitted.

The "30 day" rule for the payment of invoices is not directly comparable, first because the value of the account must be calculated after it is submitted and second because payments incorporate an 80 per cent advance. Details of how payments are calculated are available here.

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