The requirement for a patient to provide written acknowledgement (e.g. a signature) of receipt of a pharmaceutical benefit has been permanently repealed from PBS legislation.
This arrangement is now permanent, and patients do not have to go back to signing PBS prescriptions on collection.
The confirmation follows a lack of clarity about the exemption after it expired on March 31st.
The Guild advocated strongly for the repeal and later confirmed with the Department of Health and Aged Care that patient signatures on PBS prescriptions will not return.
The removal of the signature requirement follows a pledge to the same effect last year given by the Minister for Health and Aged Care, Mark Butler at APP2023.
“That goes precisely in the wrong direction,” he said at the time.
The Guild welcomes this common-sense approach to ensuring that patients are not unnecessarily burdened by administrative red tape.
Signature requirements do still apply to Safety Net Patient Record Forms, and patients/carers and pharmacists are still required to sign acknowledgement.
