Nurse practitioners and midwives
From 1 November 2010, eligible nurse practitioners and midwives can access specific Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) items and prescribe certain Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) subsidised medicines.
To be eligible to access these services you must register for a Medicare provider number and PBS prescriber number with Medicare Australia.
How do I register?
To enable you to provide MBS services and prescribe certain PBS subsidised medicines from 1 November 2010, you will need to apply for a Medicare provider number and PBS prescriber number.
To register, you will need to complete the Application for a Medicare provider number and/or PBS prescriber number for a midwife or nurse practitioner [PDF, 126Kb]
.
Medicare Australia will start accepting applications from 1 July 2010. Medicare provider and PBS prescriber numbers will be allocated from 1 September 2010.
How do I know if I am eligible?
To be eligible you must be either:
- registered under the National Registration Accreditation Scheme or
- registered with a state or territory board.
For more information about registration requirements, go to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia
website.
Medicare eLearning for nurse practitioners and midwives
To assist nurse practitioners and midwives, Medicare Australia has created a series of eLearning modules.
These modules are interactive, easy to use and include:
Medicare and You
- Introduction to Medicare Australia
- Introduction to the Medicare Benefits Schedule
- Billing and claiming
- Referrals and requests
PBS and You
- What is the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme?
- Using the Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits
- Ensuring the Integrity of the PBS
- Each module will take about 15-20 minutes to complete.
Nurse practitioners and midwives access to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)
On 16 March 2010 the Australian Government passed The Health Legislation Amendment (Midwives and Nurse Practitioners) Act 2010.
The passage of legislation means that eligible nurse practitioners and midwives will be able to have access to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) for the first time from 1 November 2010.
Medicare Australia will commence issuing provider and prescriber numbers from 1 September 2010. This will enable authorised nurse practitioners and midwives to order their prescription pads in preparation for commencement of prescribing.
The personalised and unpersonalised prescription pads for nurse practitioners and midwives will have the same look and feel as prescription pads for other prescribers but the colour will be different. On the personalised prescription pads the indicator “NP” for nurse practitioner or “MW” for midwife will be printed after the prescriber number to assist pharmacy to identify the prescriber type. On the unpersonalised prescription pads, nurse practitioners and midwives will indicate their prescriber type by ticking the appropriate box on the prescription form.
From I November you will be able to supply PBS prescriptions written by authorised nurse practitioners and midwives. Prescriptions written by authorised nurse practitioners and midwives should be claimed as per the current process for prescriptions.
Standard prescription form - sample [PDF, 60Kb]
New Reason Codes
As part of these initiatives, two new reason codes are being introduced on 1 November 2010.
606 – ‘Prescriber is not authorised to prescribe this item’.
You will receive this reason code when the prescriber is not authorised to prescribe this item.
607 – ‘Prescriber is not authorised to prescribe this item at date of prescribing’.
You will receive this reason code when the prescriber is not authorised to prescribe the item at date of prescribing.
For more information about Reason Codes call the PBS general enquiries line on 132290* (option 2)
* Call charges may apply
For more information
- Call 132 150
- Go to the Maternity Services Review page on the Department of Health and Ageing website
For more information for pharmacists, please go to PBS for pharmacists.
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Last updated: 24 August, 2010
