What is the Pharmacare Allowance?
Manufactures of generic drugs provide significant rebates to pharmacies that purchase their product. These are called professional allowances. These rebates are not reflected in the list prices used by the Pharmacare Programs to calculate Maximum Allowable Cost (MAC) prices. The Pharmacare Program discount certain MAC prices by an amount, referred to as the Pharmacare Allowance, to reflect a transfer of a portion of the pharmacy’s rebate to the Pharmacare Programs and its beneficiaries. The Pharmacare Allowance is currently 15 per cent and is applied to the top 20 (by cost) interchangeable, multi-source generic categories covered under the Pharmacare Programs.
