| "The current system is not smart or sustainable and simply must change," Ms Thomson said. "GPs are currently required to phone the government call centre for certain prescription authorisation – for no other reason than to save (the government PBS costs)," Ms Thomson said. Under the plan, education sessions would be held for GPs to discuss the latest information on drug efficacy, cost and prescribing patterns in their district. Dr Wayne Herdy of the Sunshine Coast Local Medical Association said freeing up doctors by doing away with time-consuming authorisations would mean they could see hundreds more patients a week. That meant a time-saving benefit to doctors on the Coast equivalent to 10 extra GPs. But he believes reforms to the system could go further, with the Commonwealth funding the gap for pensioners for certain more expensive PBS authorised drugs that are essential for the best patient outcome. Presently, those who can least afford it were being slugged for the difference, he said. "This may be just $3 on a drug that costs $63 but, for a pensioner paying $4.70 for a script already that is a significant cost," Dr Herdy said. Maroochydore pensioner Nick Sprogis said he would spend more than $10 a week on prescriptions. And sometimes he has to pay the extra for a brand drug. "It would be good if they could lower the costs – usually the chemist asks if you want to save money by using the generic drug rather than the brand name," he said. Dr Herdy said some generic drugs were as effective as the dearer drugs but in other cases there were significant differences in efficiency. He believes 98% of the authority prescription requests made to unqualified call centre staff were approved after one phone call. The remaining 2% were usually approved after slight modifications. Local Pharmacy Guild of Queensland spokesman, Tim Logan, said the authorisation process was also a pain for pharmacists because of the red tape involved. | 
