From 1 May 2019, all standard dose Proton Pump Inhibitors will change from Restricted Benefit to Authority Required (Streamline).
This will affect:
- Esomeprazole 20mg
- Lansoprazole 30mg
- Omeprazole 20mg
- Pantoprazole 20mg
- Rabeprazole 20mg
Higher doses will require phone approval. This may take some learning – for example, esomeprazole 40mg tab is not authority approved for GORD not responding to lower doses , but the capsule form is.
You can look up the authority rules for the higher dose PPIs here.
This currently shows the only PPI requiring phone authority is 40mg esomeprazole, the others all being streamline.
Practices (and pharmacies) should ensure that they have installed the most recent updates available on their clinical software so that the new codes are available for use.
Prescribers need to ensure that the appropriate codes are utilised to ensure that these can be dispensed by pharmacies under the PBS. The streamline code reflects the indication for which the PPI is prescribed, e.g. GORD, Zollinger-Ellison syndrome.