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Medicine & Health School of Population Health

60-Day Dispensing Policy: impact and outcomes

Female doctor hand holding blurred medical bottle and writing prescription form to patient at hospital or clinic. Pharmaceutical care, pain management and healthcare concept. Selective focus.

Our Research Program

Background

In September 2023, the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care introduced an initiative under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) to allow certain medicines to be dispensed for a 60-day supply instead of the usual 30 days. This change aims to provide patients with stable, ongoing health conditions more convenience and cost savings. The changes were implemented in 3 tranches over 12 months (1 September 2023, 1 March 2024, 1 September 2024). As of September 2024, nearly 300 medicines are eligible for 60-day prescriptions, including treatments for conditions like asthma, depression, and glaucoma.

This initiative is designed to reduce the frequency of pharmacy visits, lower out-of-pocket costs, and improve medication adherence for patients. Prescribers use their clinical judgment to determine if a patient qualifies for a 60-day prescription. There is limited evidence from other countries about the clinical, health service and economic impact of longer prescriptions.

Aims

MI-CRE is initiating a program of research across our network to evaluate the impact of this policy intervention. Initially, we aim to describe:

  • trends in uptake of 60-day dispensing
  • characteristics of people dispensed 30-day and 60-day PBS items
  • changes in medication adherence
  • changes in GP and pharmacy visit frequency
  • changes in out-of-pocket costs

This initial descriptive study will utilise the PBS 10% sample, a standardised dataset of national dispensing claims provided by the Australian Government Services Australia for analytical use.

Outcomes and significance

This research will give insight into the short-term outcomes of the PBS 60-day dispensing listing changes. The results will inform further research using linked administrative data, providing more detailed analyses of health service utilisation and clinical outcomes. They will also inform evaluation of the listing change policy. We will report our findings to the Department of Health and Aged Care and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee, as well as in scientific publications.

This program of work will be undertaken through a series of individual projects across the MI-CRE network. Information about each of the projects will be added to this page at regular intervals.  

60-Day Dispensing Dashboard

The dashboard below has been created by Kelly Hall, one of our PhD Scholars at University of South Australia. The dashboard provides a visual display of trends in dispensing for medicines that can be dispensed for 60 days under the PBS. There is a 3-month time lag in the data available, however all medicines eligible for 60-day dispensings have been included.