Where does a pharmacist money come from?
If you've
read the drug tariff thoroughly you might know this
information in more detail and with accurate
figures, however I'll explain why pharmacists can
earn so much, and how the pharmacy owner such as
boots or independent pharmacy's can afford to pay
high salary's? A pharmacist owner of the smallest
pharmacy you can think of can earn over £60,000
easily, here's how....
I will show
you with loose calculations how the money can build up
even when underestimating (every figure used is an
underestimate). To start lets say a normal pharmacy with
approximately 2000 items per months. This is the usual
"minimum" for most pharmacy's. Every pharmacy that
does 2000 items a month will get paid approximately £20k
every 6 months. So that's already £40k per year. View
drug tariff part VIA.
Every item
dispensed, the business gets paid a dispensing fee, this
is approximately 90p. So per month they will get £1800
(90p x 2000 items), per year they will get £21600.
Add this to what we had earlier that a total of £61k.
Pharmacy's
make most there money from generics, cause companies
like sigma can sell the product at a price lower than
the drug tariff (the drug tariff price is what the
pharmacy gets paid for reimbursement of the item). The
price of medicines bought can be up to 10% of what they
get paid. However branded items usually come with little
or no discount at all, and money made from branded items
is only for the dispensing fee and for the customer.
Lets say (as an underestimate, I can go so far to say
its a big underestimate) the pharmacy earns 20% from the
medicines sold. A small pharmacy dispensing 2000 items
may spend an average of £300 per day, earning £60 per
day. If the pharmacy is open 5 days per week, then
that's around £15600 per year. So our total is now
£77k per year.
There are also extra services in which pharmacy's are
paid, such as for handling controlled drugs, over the
counter business and private prescriptions.
There are
also many fees in which the pharmacy must pay such as
legal fees (solicitors), accountants, staff, ect.
However, as I was overly underestimating everything
the pharmacy should still earn £77k. So if it is a
pharmacy owner they will get this money for themselves,
and could easily pay £40k for a pharmacists to work full
time. Therefore a pharmacy owner can get £30k per year
for doing practically nothing. Also remember all my
estimates are for the minimum business a pharmacy will
have, if a pharmacy gets less than 2000 items per month
then its on the road to closure.
note: these are
all estimates and figures have been derived from the
drug tariff and observations in pharmacies, I am not a
pharmacy owner so I can't say how much they actually
earn.
