Govt scraps PBS opioid review for end-of-life patients
Bureaucratic impediments to accessing pain relief are being ditched as part of a revamp of the schedule for palliative care
Patients under palliative care will no longer require clinical review at 12 months to receive long-term opioids on the PBS.
Professor Meera Agar
Rules introduced last year to the general schedule meant that a second doctor — not necessarily a pain specialist — should review patients if opioid treatment was exceeding, or expected to exceed, 12 months.
However, the requirement