Shoppers Drug Mart billed $81M for MedsChecks in 2 years when COVID services waned
CBC
Shoppers Drug Mart billed the Ontario government’s MedsCheck program $81.2 million for medication reviews over a two-year period when some of its current and former pharmacists said they were facing “unethical” corporate pressure to meet targets for the professional service.
That total for the 2022-23 and 2023-24 fiscal years is $8 million more than the corporate pharmacy chain billed for the same services over the previous six years combined, according to data obtained by CBC News through a freedom of information request.
“Correlation is not causation, but the upswing in MedsChecks is remarkable given the downswing in revenues from things like COVID shots or other services that were allowed during COVID,” said Aly Háji, a regulatory lawyer who specializes in pharmacy health-care law.
“It speaks to a larger problem around corporatization of healthcare, where the healthcare professional has dual loyalties, the loyalty to the corporation and their business, and the loyalty to the patient, which should always be paramount.”
Medication reviews are meetings between a pharmacist and a patient to go over their prescriptions and ensure they're taking the right combination of medicines. Anyone who takes at least three medications for a chronic condition, is living in a licenced long-term care home, or is receiving treatment for diabetes is eligible for a medication review in Ontario.
Pharmacies can bill the government $60 for an annual medication review, $75 for a person with diabetes and $25 for follow-ups.
Last year, a CBC News investigation revealed that Shoppers Drug Mart had targets for professional services like medication reviews — and corporate management pressured pharmacy owners to meet those numbers. At the time, several current and former Shoppers pharmacists said that pressure ramped up after the pandemic when demand for COVID-19 testing and vaccinations waned.
After that reporting, CBC News requested nearly a dozen years worth of billing data for the MedsCheck program from pharmacy chains operating in Ontario from the Ministry of Health.
Recently, the ministry provided the data for eight of the 10 corporations in the province: Shoppers Drug Mart, Loblaw Pharmacy, Walmart Pharmacy, Pharmasave, Costco Pharmacy, Sobeys Pharmacy, Metro Pharmacy and Pharmachoice.
The other two, Rexall, and McKesson (which owns chains like Guardian and I.D.A.), appealed the ministry’s decision to share their billing data and their numbers so they are not included in the data for this story.
In emailed statements, most of the pharmacy chains emphasized that patient care is their priority.
Overall, the eight pharmacy chains collectively billed the province $293.2 million for medication reviews from the 2013-14 fiscal year through the end of October 2024 in the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Shoppers’ billing accounts for 77 per cent of that total at $225.3 million across an average of 682 pharmacy locations a year. Those locations make up just over half of the average total number of pharmacies across the eight chains combined.
In March 2020, the MedsCheck program was amended to allow pharmacists to conduct medication reviews over the phone in addition to in person because of the pandemic.
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