Hepatitis C Medicines - Fact Sheet for Public and Private Hospital Prescribers & Dispensers

A range of medicines for the treatment of hepatitis C are available through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), through both the PBS General Schedule and the Section 100 Highly Specialised Drugs (HSD) Program.  The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee recommended these medicines be made available in this way to ensure the broadest possible access.

Patient eligibility is the same whether the medicines are prescribed through the General Schedule or the S100 HSD program.

Using the right listing at the time of prescribing will help patients to get their prescription filled by the right pharmacy.

For dispensing through the community setting, Hospital Prescribers should:

Use the General Schedule listing to allow dispensing through community pharmacy (NB. General Schedule not to be used for public patients receiving treatment at NSW/ACT public hospitals).

• Practitioner should prescribe, and seek Medicare ‘authority’, using the General Schedule listing. The authority number will not have a prefix (identifying it as a General Schedule script)
• Patient should be advised to have the original and any repeat scripts dispensed at a community pharmacy

Benefits:

Patient - can access the medicine at their local pharmacy 

Community Pharmacy – fees & mark-ups reflect the community pharmacy delivery chain

For dispensing through hospital pharmacies, Hospital Prescribers should:

Use the Section 100 Highly Specialised Drugs listing if specific circumstances require dispensing through Public Hospital or Private Hospital Pharmacy:

• Practitioner should prescribe & seek Medicare ‘authority’ using the S100 Highly Specialised Drugs program – the authority number issued by Medicare will have a PTE or PUB prefix (identifying it as a S100 prescription)
• Patient should be advised to have the original and any repeat prescriptions dispensed at the hospital pharmacy

Benefits:

Patient – if patient requires access through hospital pharmacy this can be accommodated

Hospital Pharmacy – mark-ups reflect the appropriate amount for the dispensing environment

Pharmacists can differentiate between General Schedule prescriptions and S100 HSD Public and Private prescriptions by the inclusion or lack of a HSD prefix on the Medicare (DHS) authority approval code:

*These are sample codes only. The actual authority number may be different.

The following tables provide the appropriate item codes for the high cost Hepatitis medicines under each PBS program.

General Schedule

The following item codes will be used for General Schedule authority approvals against the listed medicines depending on the numbers of repeats:

S100 HSD Private

The following item codes will be used for S100 HSD Private Hospital authority approvals against the listed medicines depending on the numbers of repeats:

S100 HSD Public

The following item codes will be used for S100 HSD Public hospital authority approvals against the listed medicines depending on the numbers of repeats:

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