Originally Posted by torcraw

Does five repeats = 6 months total? So standard prescription lengths and costs (for the prices quoted on the PBS site) are for only 30 days, and not 60 or 90?

The "price to consumer" for a drug I'm taking seems high on the PBS site ("up to $20.37") if that's only for 30 days - that's higher than if I had to pay for that same drug's full cost out of pocket if I had NO private drug insurance here in Canada. (90 days of the same drug here would cost C$53.73 if I had NO drug insurance - (fortunately I currently have employer-sponsored insurance, so I'm only paying an C$8 co-pay right now).

And that's not even factoring in the "Amount paid by govt." ($17.20) column on the PBS site for that drug (which would make the real cost for this particular drug in Australia $37.57 for 30 days or $112.71 for 90 days (double the price in Canada!). Not sure how that higher cost makes any sense if Australia is on a national drug program (which Canada doesn't have, drugs are usually paid with employer sponsored private insurance). It would be nice if those PBS charts had "quantity of drug issued" per prescription to clear this question up!

Does anyone have any instances where PBS prescriptions are for longer than 30 days? (note that this particular drug is for a very common condition, and is also very commonly prescribed, so it's nothing that's rare/unusual - all prices quoted above are all for generic versions of it).

Originally Posted by Wendy

I get Thyroxine (Eutroxine) for my underactive thyroid - I get a repeat prescription and each one is for 6 packs of 40 tablets, of which I take 2 per day (I did only take one before though!). They cost me between $20 and $30 depending on the pharmacy.

Originally Posted by torcraw

To clarify, the $20-30 cost is per pack of 40 tablets, and not for all 6 (i.e. you actually pay $120-180 in the end?)