From 1 January 2023, the PBS general patient maximum co-payment amount will be reduced to $30.00. As part of this initiative, pharmacies will be able to offer general patients increased discounting on medications that fall within the Increased Discounting Range (IDR).

This release, 7.4.1, contains changes to dispense pricing that will come into effect on 1 January 2023 to allow you to dispense PBS prescriptions at an increased discount. Prior to this date you should not see any changes to dispense pricing or dispensing in Minfos other than a change to the Co-pay checkbox.

Click here for general information about these changes, but in preparation it is critical that you update to 7.4.1 prior to 1 January 2023. To prepare your staff for the changes refer to Dispensing an item in the Increased Discounting Range, applicable from 1 January 2023.

In preparation for the 1 January 2023 dispense pricing changes, when you update to 7.4.1 you will notice the Co-Pay checkbox on the Dispense Form has been replaced with a Discount dropdown list.

The options that will be available in the new Discount dropdown list are:

1. No disc - this means that a co-payment discount has not been applied (equivalent to the Co-pay checkbox being unchecked).

2. Co-pay - this means that a co-payment discount has been applied (equivalent to the Co-pay checkbox being checked.

3. Incr. disc. - this option is greyed out and is not able to be selected. From 1 January 2023, this option will be auto selected when a script that falls into the Increased Discounting Range (IDR) has been discounted below the PBS general co-payment amount. There will be more information to come on how you will provide your patients with increased discounting.

The behaviour on the default setting of the co-pay value and when the field is enabled has not changed.

To change the value of the field:

1. Use your mouse to click the arrow on the Discount dropdown and then select the required option.

Or

2. Use your keyboard:

a. Press [ Alt +] ], (this is the same shortcut that checked/un-checked the Co-pay checkbox) the Discount dropdown is highlighted.

b. Press [Spacebar] - to display the options in the dropdown menu.

c. Press [1] to select No disc or [2] to select Co-pay (the discount will be applied to the price).

PBS sets the maximum allowable fee for the:

• Allowable additional patient charge aka Allowable Extra Fee
• Additional Fees (for Safety Net prices) aka Safety Net Recording Fee
• Co-Payment Discount

You can set these fees to always be at the maximum value by checking the corresponding Use max. allowed govt fee checkbox in Dispense Options. This means each time the Government adjust their fees, Minfos will automatically adjust the value accordingly.

However, if you have manually set the fee to a different value:

• If the Government maximum fee is increased, then the field in Minfos will not be changed and remain as the value you have set
• If the Government maximum fee is decreased, then the field will automatically adjust to the maximum allowable fee

Minfos does not allow you to exceed the maximum fee.

A new utility has been created to help you bulk set some useful customer attributes e.g. the Scripts on File checkbox.

The utility enables you to import a tab delimited file to update customer attributes using Customer Code.

Refer to Import Customer Attributes for more information.

1. Import Drug Pricing will now be imported correctly even if the MNPN numbers are not in sequential order in the import file.

2. Improvements have been made to eRx drug matching when an exact match can be found, the drug will be automatically populated on the Dispense Form.

1. Minfos will no longer prompt unnecessarily when collecting invoices in Order Maintenance. A prompt will now only display when there are no invoices and transfers to be collected.

2. Pending supplier accounts applied through PharmX will now change to Active automatically when approved by the supplier.