Canada: Australia, and what it actually costs here
Canada: Australia, and what it actually costs here. Making the case below, and I expect to lose some of it in the comments.
Pharmacy-level availability and national supply are different questions: a pharmacy can be out while the wholesaler is not, and the pharmacist can check in minutes.
Compounded supply arrangements have changed materially in recent years. Advice predating that change describes a situation that no longer applies.
Australia and New Zealand have different regulators, different funding bodies and different arrangements. An answer for one is not evidence about the other.
Not medical advice, obviously, and nothing here is approved for human use. One person with a spreadsheet.
best — the order this archive was captured in
Subsidy criteria and authority requirements are published. For eligibility questions those documents are authoritative and this board is not.
Registration by the therapeutic goods regulator establishes that a product may be supplied. Subsidy listing is a separate decision about public funding, with its own criteria and its own timetable.
PBS criteria are published and searchable
Australia and New Zealand are separate systems and get conflated weekly
the TGA shortage database is public and it is the source, not the news
The compounded arrangements changed while I was mid-thread and I was arguing from a superseded position.
The compounded arrangements changed while I was mid-thread and I was arguing from a superseded position.
This is the distinction that makes the rest of the board legible.
The national shortage database is a primary source with expected resolution dates attached. It is public, searchable, and consistently more accurate than reporting about it.
Checked the shortage database myself instead of reading the coverage. Expected resolution date was right there and the panic thread was wrong.
Are you quoting advice from before the compounded arrangements changed?
pharmacy stock and national supply are different questions
Are you quoting advice from before the compounded arrangements changed?
Adding the quickest step — ask the pharmacist to check the wholesaler.
Where to look instead of asking, which will nearly always be faster.
The national shortage database is public, searchable and carries expected resolution dates. The subsidy criteria for each indication are published. Your pharmacist can check wholesaler availability in a few minutes, which is a different question from what is on the shelf.
Between those three, most questions on this board are answerable in half an hour with primary sources. The board is genuinely useful for experience, pricing comparison and the parts that are not written down anywhere — it is a poor substitute for a document that exists.
This. New Zealand has its own regulator and its own funding decisions and the answers genuinely differ.
Flagged as describing the superseded compounded arrangements — left up with a note rather than removed.
the shortage listing has an expected resolution date on it
Asked the pharmacist to check the wholesaler and had a definite answer in about four minutes.
Personal importation provisions exist, are narrow, and carry conditions. Any summary of them here should be checked against the current official wording rather than a forum post.
keep the script and the receipt for private health claims
Push back: the compounded arrangements changed and the advice you are quoting predates the change.
Same. Private pricing varies here as much as anywhere and people assume it is fixed.
I would not treat one pharmacy’s quote as the national price. Variation between them is substantial.
Which indication is the script written for?
Kept the script and the receipt for a private health claim and both were requested.
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