Closing the Gap – registering a patient

A significant number of eligible Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander patients have not been correctly registered for the Closing the Gap Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme co-payment program. As of 1 February 2022, these patients will not have the applicable co-payment reduction applied when their prescriptions are being dispensed.

To ensure eligible patients are formally registered for the Program and continue to receive their PBS medicines at the reduced PBS co-payment, health care providers need to review the registration status for any Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander patients. A patient’s registration status can be checked using the Health Professional Online Services (HPOS). If the patient is not formally registered with Services Australia, HPOS will indicate that the person is ‘inactive’. In this case, you will need to contact that patient to arrange to have them assessed by either a PBS prescriber or an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioner.

This issue must be rectified before 31 January 2022 to ensure all eligible Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander patients who have previously received their PBS general schedule medicines under the program can continue to do so.

Information on registering patients for the program can be found on the Department of Health’s website.

For PBS prescribers, if you require information on using HPOS this can be found on the Services Australia website.

Health care providers can register their patients if they’re:

• a PBS prescriber
• an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioner registered with both the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) and Medicare.
   

Instructions 

1. Log into your individual PRODA account
2. Navigate to HPOS > Go to Services > My Programs
3. Select the ‘Closing the Gap PBS Co-Payment Register’ tile
4. Select the method you’d like to use to search for your patient – ‘Medicare Card details’ or ‘patients name details’
5. Read and agree to the declaration
6. If successful, your patient will be displayed below the search criteria with their current Close the Gap registration status
7. If the Register button displays as an ‘Inactive’ status, select the ‘register’ button
8. Select save
9. The registration status should change from inactive to active.