As of 1 September 2026, prescriber accreditation requirements previously applying to medicines for the treatment of hepatitis B and hepatitis C under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) Section 100 (s100) Highly Specialised Drugs (HSD) Program have been removed.
From 1 September 2026, any medical practitioner or authorised nurse practitioner (NP) can prescribe hepatitis B and hepatitis C medicines (for both initiation and maintenance treatment) for eligible people under the s100 HSD Program, without a legislated requirement to obtain prior accreditation as a s100 hepatitis B or hepatitis C prescriber.
This change follows stakeholder consultation and is expected to improve timely patient access to these PBS-subsidised medicines, particularly in regional, rural and remote areas, by expanding the cohort of health practitioners authorised to prescribe them.
The patient and prescriber eligibility criteria set out in the PBS restrictions for the relevant medicines (as applicable) must continue to be met for PBS subsidy to apply. For dual-listed hepatitis C medicines, these are contained in the General Statement for Drugs for the Treatment of Hepatitis C. People must also be receiving treatment in a hospital setting (other than as admitted patients of a public hospital) to be eligible to receive PBS-subsidised hepatitis C medicines under the s100 HSD Program.
Further information about these changes can be found in the relevant Fact Sheet available on the s100 HSD Program webpage.