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.
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 will be dropped from the Palliative Care Schedule following lobbying by Palliative Care Australia.
The organisation had feared some patients could end up in hospital unnecessarily if GPs or other prescribers could not arrange the review for patients at the end of life, especially for those in aged care.
