Health Minister Tony Ryall said this week all 947 of the country's pharmacies had signed up, proving they supported a new focus on patient management.
Waihemo Pharmacy owner Adrian Graamans said he had no choice but to sign by Monday's cut-off date, or risk losing a large chunk of funding through the threat of removing his dispensing ratio.
He acknowledged the Southern District Health Board was implementing a national contract which it had not designed.
However: "They are such bullies," he said, referring to the district health board.
Mr Graamans held out for a month longer than most pharmacists, who had signed by the end of June, but said he could no longer afford to do so.
He believed pharmacies had signed up to a "crazy experiment" that would become a "train-wreck" whose problems would not be revealed immediately due to the softening impact of transition payments.
Waihemo was "a loser" due to its high proportion of elderly customers, the serving of whom would become less lucrative under the new contract.
In contrast, Mr Graamans' other pharmacy, in Dunedin's Meridian mall, was a "massive winner", because its clients tended to be young and healthy.
The model simply would not work, Mr Graamans said, and had not been well designed.
It did not acknowledge some customers took far longer to deal with than others.
An outstanding issue from the negotiating process was a promise Mr Graamans unsuccessfully sought for a review to trigger if income at his Palmerston pharmacy dropped by 10% or more.
He was not mollified by the three-year transition period, saying interim payments provided only a temporary cushion.
The Southern DHB was "disappointed" by Mr Graamans' comments, funding and finance executive director Robert Mackway-Jones said.
"This is a national process and the national contract has been supported by the Pharmacy Guild.
"In this case [Mr Graamans] has received individual support from the DHB, in addition to the national contract, to assist with overheads."
