Ont. to pay for smoking cessation

TORONTO–Pharmacy Post has learned that the Ontario Ministry of Health will be reimbursing pharmacists as part of a smoking cessation pilot project set to launch this spring.

The Ontario Pharmacists’ Associ- ation has teamed up with the Ontario Medical Association and the Ontario Dental Association to launch the pilot as part of a larger initiative to provide pharmacists, physicians and dentists with proper education and tools to help their patients quit smoking. The program will run for nine months, educating about 750 healthcare professionals.

Forty pharmacies from across the province will participate in the pilot. Pharmacists are required to counsel two patients per week for a period of 20 weeks and document each interaction. Counselling will be performed in four steps: asking customers if they smoke; advising customers who smoke to quit; assessing customers’ interest in quitting and assisting customers in quitting. The government will pay pharmacists $10 per interaction.

Watch for the February issue of Pharmacy Post for more details.