Active Ingredient Prescribing (AIP) - 31/Jul/2021 grace period [Dept of Health]

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT from Digital Health & Services Australia Branch, Australian Government Department of Health:

To support pharmacies, and ensure consumers have continued access to PBS and RPBS subsidised medicines during the transition to Active Ingredient Prescribing, the Department has agreed to provide a six-month grace period for pharmacy, ceasing 31 July 2021.

Within this period, if a pharmacy receives a prescription that does not meet active ingredient prescribing requirements the pharmacists have been advised to contact the prescriber and request the prescription be re-issued in accordance with the requirements that come into effective on 1 February 2021.

If the prescriber is unable to issue a compliant prescription for any reason, the pharmacy may supply and claim for the medicine as normal under the PBS or RPBS without penalty.

Why the grace period?

This grace period has been introduced by the Department of Health (DoH) as the requirements for AIP are needed by health software developers as well as DoH testing staff themselves to ensure that all medical software vendors are compliant.

At time of writing 29/Jan/2021 these requirements are still being finalised.

How do I prescribe in the interim?

In the interim period you can prescribe as normal.

It is sufficient to notify any pharmacist or pharmacy about the official grace period for AIP should they ask.

About PrimaryClinic’s approach to implementing AIP

PrimaryClinic is already working with MIMS to produce an AIP release well ahead of the July 2021 deadline. There are also a number of other government-led changes coming in 2021 which include a move to newer technology impacting things like authentication and prescribing.

A number of these changes will start appearing in our first combined release around the March/April 2021 timeframe and we will be communicating with you to prepare for these changes.  At this stage, our aim is to introduce the following changes:

• ePrescribing – release for Feb 2021
• PRODA - government’s new authentication requirements – target date March/April 2021
• MIMS web services – new MIMS approach to support AIP workflows – target date March/April 2021

NOTE: Other changes such as AIP may be rolled into these major releases and we will keep you advised ahead of time.