DISPENSING doctors will save at least R8 million a year following a number of agreements with the Department of Health, another sign of improving relations between the government and the private healthcare sector. However, the saving will not be passed on to patients. Norman Mabasa, the chairman of the National Convention on Dispensing (NCD), said doctors would not pocket this saving, as it only meant they would reduce the loss of running their practices. The Department of Health has agreed to reduce the annual dispensing licensing fee by 75 percent to R200 a year. Doctors will also save on the advertising expense, which they incurred when they applied for a dispensing licence for the first time. They had to place advertisements 30 days before submitting their application for a dispensing licence, which cost an average of R400 per advertisement. The government has also given into the doctors' demand by changing the term of renewal from every two years to every five years. However, a dispensing cost of R2 400 a year, which is used to educate doctors on what they are not supposed to do when dispensing, is still in place. The NCD represents one segment of the private health care sector that has been at loggerheads with the Department of Health for a long time. In the past, doctors have taken the government to court over the dispensing fee, but the matter was eventually resolved out of court. Mabasa said doctors were still not entirely happy with the dispensing fee but were comfortable with the new arrangement as the fee would now be reviewed every year. The dispensing fee was first introduced in 2004.

Slindile Khanyile: Business Report, 7 April 2010