Prescriber Types

13 February 2013

Prior to November 2010 the Drug Type Code was used to indicate which items a prescriber group was able to prescribe. Prescriber Groups included Medical Practitioners (General Schedule), Dental Practitioners and Optometrists. The Drug Type Code was a two letter value, such as GE, DT, OT, etc.

In November 2010 a new mechanism was introduced to represent which prescribers were able to prescribe which items: Prescriber Types. Prescriber Types include the above Prescriber Groups, as well as Nurse Practitioners and Midwives. Prescriber Types are represented in the PBS XML as a group, with prescribing rules being members of one or more prescriber type groups.

Between November 2010 and October 2012 both Drug Type Codes and Prescriber Types were included in the published data.

In December 2012 the publication of Drug Type Codes ceased. These were replaced by a Program Code. A Program Code groups together PBS Items that have the same pricing model and follow the same business rules.

Drug Types Codes are mapped to Program Codes as follows: