Clozapine claiming online
November 28, 2013
The Society of Hospital
Pharmacists of Australia says
it’s concerned about the impact
of a change which will see all
public hospitals as well as eligible
correctional facilities required
to move to online claiming for
clozapine.
The move is effective 01 Jan 2014
and will require that the medicine
is recorded in the hospital’s
prescription recording system.
“SHPA understands that this
has the potential to dismantle
the shared care arrangements for
patients with schizophrenia that
require treatment with clozapine,”
according to the SHPA.
Until now public hospitals in
Victoria, NSW, Queensland, South
Australia and Western Australia
have instigated a system where
clozapine is initiated and evaluated
through the hospital’s mental
health unit.
Once the patient is stabilised their
ongoing monitoring and treatment
is transferred to the patient’s
community based health team.
“These shared care arrangements
have to date been reliant upon
goodwill between the hospital and
community based practitioners.
“In addition, the treating hospital
has been able to manually claim
the cost of the medicine at a
jurisdictional level through the
HSD Program, even though some
or most of the doses are supplied
through the patient’s community
pharmacy,” the update said.
SHPA has written to health
ministers across the country as
well as other groups to express its
concerns about how the move will
affect the care of patients who are
treated with clozapine.
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