The Pharmacy Guild is again under fire for another promotional deal just weeks after backing down on a controversial deal between pharmacies and supplement drug company Blackmores.

In the latest deal, pharmacists groups say their reputation is at stake over a deal between the Guild, which represents pharmacy owners, and drug company Pfizer.

Under that agreement, pharmacists receive $7 if they recommend a Pfizer support package to patients receiving certain prescription drugs.

Pfizer Australia managing director John Latham rejects suggestions the payment is a kickback.

"That's basically administration fees," he said.

"So what happens is the pharmacist has to come down, he has to step down from behind the bench, he has to talk to the patient about the medicine, about the medication, and actually talk about the support program and ask the patient if the patient wants to enrol with those programs.

"And so I think a $7 fee for the time of the pharmacist to be able to do that is not unreasonable."

Groups representing individual pharmacists say they are worried by the Pfizer deal.

Society of Hospital Pharmacists chief executive Yvonne Allinson says she is calling for transparency in the deal.

"My concern is that it puts the pharmacists' reputations at stake," she said.

"I don't know the details of the deal. Our pharmacist organisation hasn't been involved in it.

"If there are things that are important there to be done, they're not being done in all pharmacy settings.

"There is no transparency, and that's really what we're calling for."

Sorry, this audio has expired Pharmacists worried by Pfizer deal ( Barbara Miller )

Ms Allinson says the controversy highlights some fundamental problems in the way pharmacy health care is managed.

"The Pharmacy Guild represents the owners of pharmacies, whereas we have more than 20,000 pharmacists working who really don't have a voice in negotiations with government and other bodies," she said.

"What this deal says to me is the time for us to be working with governments and consumers on transparent arrangements for pharmacist services is now."

Ms Allinson says the Government should reconsider how it deals with the Pharmacy Guild.

'Serious questions'

The Pfizer agreement comes two weeks after the Pharmacy Guild backed out of an agreement with Blackmores.

Under it, pharmacists would have been prompted to recommend a range of Blackmores vitamins with certain medicines.

At the time the Guild said in a statement that the public was not well-informed about the deal.

"The decision has been taken in view of the strong level of public concern about the proposal, based on some media reporting of the endorsement which was ill-informed and inflammatory," the statement said.

Greens health spokesman Senator Richard Di Natale says there are some serious questions that need to be asked of the Guild.

"We've now seen two arrangements between the Guild and pharmaceutical companies - arrangements which are clearly in the interests of the Guild and not necessarily in the interests of patients," he said.

"So I think that there's some serious questions that need to be asked.

"I'd say the Guild really at this point needs to declare whether in fact it has entered into any other arrangements with pharmaceutical companies similar to the deal it entered into with Blackmores and now Pfizer, which really do compromise that relationship between healthcare professionals and patients."

'Out of touch'

Consumers Health Forum (CHF) chief executive Carol Bennett says the lobby group is calling on the Federal Government to review the way it does business with the Guild.

"What it does is bring into question the whole arrangement between the Government and the Guild under the Government-Guild Agreement, where $15 billion is spent on supporting a monopoly of interest from pharmacy owners to provide professional services to consumers," she said.

"And at a time when the Pharmacy Guild is doing everything it can to undermine that and promote its own profits and its own interests ahead of those of the health care of its customers, then I think we have to question, is this agreement a good agreement for Australian taxpayers?"

The Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, which represents some pharmacists, says the Guild is out of touch.

"The Guild pretends that it represents the interests of the profession," said association chief executive Chris Walton.

"Unfortunately, it's demonstrated with these two deals that it represents the interests of the holy dollar rather than the high-standing ethics of the profession."

No-one from the Pharmacy Guild was available to talk to The World Today.

The Guild has recently confirmed Kos Sclavos has been re-elected as the president of the organisation for a further three years.