resulted in an additional two medicines being prescribed. She now has four medicines a month at no out-of-pocket cost. Scenario 4 Increased Financial impact Financial benefits numbers of for general attributed to the Pre or Post CtG scripts: general patients measure A new cardiovascular drug is approved patients (expenditure Health benefits by PBAC and listed on the PBS. Its PBS dispensed at increase) and due to new drug. price is above the general beneficiary least one health benefit for threshold and it is more effective than script. all patients existing PBS medicines. In general Increased practice prescribing, this new medicine scripts per replaces a commonly used medicine that general is below the general beneficiary patient threshold. GPs quickly change their prescribing practice. When a general beneficiary fills this script, it now appears as PBS utilisation whereas the previous medicine did not. Scenario 5 Increased Financial benefit Financial benefit number of due to the Pre CtG scripts: people with at measure A general beneficiary is prescribed three least one medicines and fills these scripts each script. month. All of these medicines are under Decreased co-pay scripts. scripts per Post CtG scripts: patient. When the patient registers for CtG scripts, she has the same number of medicines but they all now attract CtG subsidy and so appear in the PBS data. Currently the average scripts per general beneficiary patient who is 15 to 55 year old and who has at least one medicine dispensed is three. The corresponding number for concessional patients in this age group is six. Hence, the introduction of more general beneficiary patients to the PBS data will reduce the average scripts per patient. Scenario 6 No change in Financial benefit Financial benefit trend in due to the As above, except two of these medicines people with at measure were above the general threshold and least one previously recorded as PBS medicines.
resulted in an additional two medicines being prescribed. She now has four medicines a month at no out-of-pocket cost. Scenario 4 Pre or Post CtG scripts: A new cardiovascular drug is approved by PBAC and listed on the PBS. Its PBS price is above the general beneficiary threshold and it is more effective than existing PBS medicines. In general practice prescribing, this new medicine replaces a commonly used medicine that is below the general beneficiary threshold. GPs quickly change their prescribing practice. When a general beneficiary fills this script, it now appears as PBS utilisation whereas the previous medicine did not. Increased numbers of general patients dispensed at least one script. Increased scripts per general patient Financial impact for general patients (expenditure increase) and health benefit for all patients Financial benefits attributed to the measure Health benefits due to new drug. Scenario 5 Pre CtG scripts: A general beneficiary is prescribed three medicines and fills these scripts each month. All of these medicines are under co-pay scripts. Post CtG scripts: When the patient registers for CtG scripts, she has the same number of medicines but they all now attract CtG subsidy and so appear in the PBS data. Currently the average scripts per general beneficiary patient who is 15 to 55 year old and who has at least one medicine dispensed is three. The corresponding number for concessional patients in this age group is six. Hence, the introduction of more general beneficiary patients to the PBS data will reduce the average scripts per patient. Increased number of people with at least one script. Decreased scripts per patient. Financial benefit Financial benefit due to the measure Scenario 6 As above, except two of these medicines were above the general threshold and previously recorded as PBS medicines. No change in trend in people with at least one Financial benefit Financial benefit due to the measure