Study on the Changes in Usage of Generic Drugs in Community Pharmacies Following the 2008 Medical Treatment Fee Revisions

Abstract

To promote the use of generic drugs and reduce healthcare costs, the Japanese government revised some rules related to generic drugs in April 2008, such as the medical treatment fee. Following this revision, generic drug use in pharmacies and pharmacists' attitudes on generic drugs were expected to be considerably changed. This study examines the generic drug use in pharmacies and pharmacists' attitude toward generic drugs by means of a questionnaire survey, undertaken to identify and clarify the problems in their use.
An anonymous questionnaire survey was conducted in 627 pharmacies, which were randomly selected from a total of 1,244 community pharmacies in Shizuoka prefecture (period of collection: September 16 to October 31, 2008).
A total of 284 (45.3%) questionnaires were collected. The results revealed that 82.8% of the pharmacies charged an additional fee for the preparation of generic drugs. The preparation ratio of generic drugs in August 2008 (41.1%) was significantly higher than that in August 2007 (32.9%). Further, 69.0% pharmacies answered in the affirmative to the following item: “The 2008 revision will facilitate the preparation and substitution of generic drugs.” On the other hand, for the item about the use of generic drugs in the future, 71.4% pharmacies answered“Under consideration” or “Not using generic drugs positively.”Many pharmacies indicated certain limitations in the use of generic drugs and expressed the necessity for improvements to be made by the government and the generic drug industry; they responded in the affirmative on the items“Increase in the number of accumulating stocks” (94.7%) and“Insecurity in the quality of generic drugs” (69.7%).
The findings revealed that despite the increased use of generic drugs, many pharmacists mistrust generic drugs owing to disadvantages such as an increase in the number of storing items. In the future, it will be necessary to reduce this anxiety and raise pharmacists' incentive for keeping supplies of these drugs by improving the accumulating stocks of generic drugs through legal intervention.