An expansion to online PBS authorities will require more documentation of patient information.
Services Australia has announced an expansion to online PBS authorities that will require further documentation of patient information.
Documentation of patient baseline values and previous treatment failures will now be required to validate extended eligibility for programs requiring complex authority requirements.
Similar systems have been in place prior to the announcement with examples given with rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease treatment having used extended patient information collection.
The changes come as Services Australia looks to transition more of the complex authority required programs to the online system.
However, the need to restate baseline values from initial applications has drawn concern from healthcare professionals regarding how this could hinder administrative efficiency.
“The act of monitoring for appropriate scripts is clearly something that government wants to do to ensure that there is not waste within the system,” Newcastle GP Max Mollenkopf told Dermatology Republic.
“Which is generally a very small part of this – authorities are normally a tick and flick exercise, and it’s just a part of putting artificial roadblocks there.”
These concerns also come as a result due to reports from earlier in the year regarding inefficiencies with the PBS authority system.
Inefficiency within the system was highlighted by an ANAO audit that showed a lack of bilateral agreement between Health Australia and Services Australia was hindering the online streamlining process.
“The online system just isn’t very efficient to start with,” said Dr Mollenkopf.
“There’s a lot of clicks and a lot of burden and a lot of work that we have to do in the online system to clunk our way through so that Services Australia can reduce the amount of overheads and staff they have, but it’s just offloading the work onto the clinicians.”
However, the online system is still being welcomed by GPs as a much-needed modernisation of an already clunky system.
The digital system has not been without its issues, with the digital alternative producing far higher rejection rates for applications compared to over-the-phone applications (5.6% rejection to 2.3%).
“I think until the actual online PBS system has significant reform to make it more streamlined and more useful and less onerous for clinicians, you can keep moving people from written to online, but the online system sucks just as much,” said Dr Mollenkopf.
“They should be putting more energy into making the online system less click heavy and less work for clinicians to push their way through.”
In terms of the impact that this announcement will have on daily administration, Dr Mollenkopf described the addition as merely an “administrative hump” that should assist in future streamlining.
“In reality, GPs just don’t do this much of these really complicated scripts,” he said.
“But specialists can be welcome to come into the ‘clickfest’ that is protocol for a lot of this stuff.”
