The national residential medication chart (NRMC) improves medication safety for your patients. It also reduces administrative work for prescribers, aged care staff and pharmacists when ordering, administering and supplying medicines.
Read more about the NRMC on the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care website.
Prescribe and supply medicines from the NRMC
You can prescribe and supply most medicines directly from the NRMC without a separate written prescription. This includes PBS and RPBS claiming by pharmacists if applicable.
Certain medicines still require a written prescription. They also require an order on the NRMC. These medicines include:
- all PBS authority required items that need prior approval online, by telephone or in writing, including PBS or RPBS items with increased quantities
- PBS items only available under section 100, such as some highly specialised drugs. Read more about section 100 items on the PBS website
- controlled drugs, such as Schedule 8 medicines. Contact your state or territory health department for more information on Schedule 8 medicines
- extemporaneously compounded medicines
- medicines that are subject to state or territory restrictions.
Authority required (streamlined) items are eligible for supply and PBS claiming using the NRMC. These items are eligible when the prescriber includes the PBS streamlined authority code in the appropriate area of the NRMC for each relevant medicine.