THE Department of Human Services has announced changes to PBS Online, which effective 05 Nov will automatically reject claims made by pharmacies when they are not authorised to supply a prescription under the Highly Specialised Drug (HSD) program.
The update will reduce the risk for pharmacies who may accidentally supply HSD items, with new "reason code messages" to alert the pharmacist that the prescription cannot be claimed.
Patients will then need to visit a pharmacy that meets prescribing rules, or return to the prescriber for an amended prescription.
Drugs on the HSD list include HIV antiretroviral therapy (ART), clozapine for maintenance therapy, and hepatitis B drugs, access to which has now been simplified under HSD Community Access (CA) arrangements.
Community pharmacies and friendly societies may not have access to public hospital HSD item codes and therefore may be unable to claim for these items.
However, they can dispense and claim public hospital CAR HSD and PBS breast cancer treatment trastuzumab prescriptions.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 01 Nov 17
To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 01 Nov 17