Pharmacists dispensing in an emergency provision situation
You may have to supply medicines using prescriptions written under emergency provisions.
For prescriptions written under the emergency provision arrangements you must:
- not exceed the maximum quantity and repeats listed in the PBS Schedule on the PBS website
- include the words Emergency authorised by the Services Australia Medicare Program
- note the time and date you tried to call.
For drugs on the Highly Specialised Drugs Program, you must include:
- the letters HSD
- the hospital provider number - not required for Community Access HSD
- the number of days of treatment.
You can’t write increased quantities and repeats above the PBS Schedule quantity under the emergency provision arrangements. You need to call back at a later time to get authority approval.
You can’t dispense prescriptions with no authority approval annotated as a PBS subsidised item.
Page last updated: 18 May 2020
This information was printed 25 February 2021 from https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/organisations/health-professionals/services/medicare/pbs-prescribers/managing/pharmacists-dispensing-emergency-provision-situation. It may not include all of the relevant information on this topic. Please consider any relevant site notices at https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/site-notices when using this material.