October 2019

Public and Private Hospital Changes to Wholesale Mark-ups for S85 Medicines

As part of the recent Budget, the Australian Government announced a measure to align the wholesale mark-up for PBS Section 85 medicines in public and private hospital pharmacies with the current wholesale mark-ups for community pharmacies.

From 1 October 2019 the PBS wholesale mark-ups for Section 85 medicines dispensed in both public and private hospitals will now be aligned with the community pharmacy mark-ups under the new measure.

There will no change to community pharmacy mark-ups or pricing calculations.

For details, see Public and Private Hospital Wholesale Mark-ups for S85 Medicines.

SafeScript and Fred Dispense for Victorian Pharmacies

SafeScript real-time prescription monitoring system is already saving lives and keeping patients with prescription medication addictions safe from harm.

SafeScript came online in Western Victoria at the start of October 2018 and is now being rolled out across the state.

Get Started with SafeScript

1. Register

Victorian pharmacies wishing to use SafeScript must first register with the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services

2. Activate

Once the registration process is complete, activate SafeScript in Fred Dispense.

1. Go to Setup > eHealth Configuration > SafeScript Configuration.

   

2. Select Activate SafeScript.

   

3. Click Save.

3. Dispense

• When you dispense S8 or Victorian monitored drugs, you must enter the patient's Date of Birth.
• SafeScript returns a notification when you navigate to the Pharmacist initials field.

For more information, refer to SafeScript in Fred Dispense.

SafeScript and Fred Dispense in Victorian Hospitals

In preparation for state wide rollout, Victorian pharmacies providing services to hospitals (specifically inpatient) will be able to flag a script as being dispensed as an inpatient script with the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+I. See Dispense a script for an inpatient for more details.

This information is important for future rules to be implemented in SafeScript. All monitored drug dispensing history is forwarded to SafeScript with this inpatient information included.

This Month's PBS Changes

For the full Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits, go to the PBS website at http://www.pbs.gov.au/ where you can search the schedule by drug name.

For your convenience, we've also uploaded a printable summary of this month's important PBS changes to this site:

Please note that the Government provides this information under embargo to Fred IT Group to enable next month’s PBS changes to be incorporated into your drug file. We have provided this information in this newsletter to prepare you for the changes, maximising patient availability/access and enabling you to adjust your stock accordingly. A condition of the embargo and in the interests of the quality use of medicines is that the information must not be released to the public or otherwise distributed prior to 1 October 2019.

View the PBS Summary of Changes