Blood checks sting patients

CHEMISTS are charging patients $220 for blood tests they can get for free from a doctor.

Around 100 Amcal chemists around the country this week began offering a new Smarthealth program where they order blood tests for diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, fatigue and vitamin D deficiency.

The chemists urging patients to take tests earn an undisclosed “administrative fee” built into the cost of the test.

And Sonic healthcare, which runs the pathology laboratories that do the tests, gets extra business from the plan but they do not pay the pharmacist.

Amcal senior pharmacist James Neville said many people, particularly men, did not see a doctor. The tests were a way to find the 500,000 people with undiagnosed diabetes or heart disease.

He said patients could already go online and order the tests themselves without a referral from a doctor, but having a pharmacist involved brought a trusted health adviser into the process who could nudge a person to see their doctor.

There is no Medicare rebate for the tests when they are ordered by a chemist, so the patient has to pay the full fee which ranges between $14.99 and $220. If a GP ordered the tests most of them would be bulk billed and cost the patient nothing.

The testing program has angered the AMA which says it fragments patient care and risks serious health problems not being detected.

It says the test results can show a patient has hepatitis, renal failure, severe anaemia or other health conditions that require urgent treatment that a pharmacist is not qualified to provide.

“This is the complete antithesis of the GP health care homes model the government is trying to develop where the patients are managed by a principal treating doctor,” AMA GP spokesman Dr Tony Bartone said.

“It could lead to missed conditions and may give patients a false sense of security,” Dr Bartone said.