Active Ingredient Prescribing makes medication easier

The introduction today of Active Ingredient Prescribing will help clarify consumers’ understanding of the medicines they are prescribed, the Consumers Health Forum says.

“This is a welcome advance for patients by focusing, where practical, on the name of the effective ingredient of a medication rather than on the brand name of the product,” the CEO of CHF, Leanne Wells, said today.

“The interchangeable use of brand names and generic names for medicines in Australia has increased the risk of confusion and uncertainty with many patients believing branded products are somehow superior to generics when this is not the case.

“The Active Ingredient Prescribing development is consistent with the principles of the National Medicines Policy, good for medicines literacy and Quality Use of Medicines.

“It will also make it easier for patients to avoid out of pocket costs by not necessarily being driven to branded, non-generic medicines.

“From today most prescriptions doctors write for medicines eligible for PBS subsidies must meet the revised arrangements to be eligible for subsidy.

“The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care has presented a variety of reasons explaining why the change makes sense,” Ms Wells said.

These include:

  • Increasing consumer health literacy about their medicines and make communication clearer and unambiguous
  • Improve safe and quality use of medicines with consistent and standardised descriptions of medicines
  • Empower and equip prescribers and consumers to better understand the active ingredients in medicines
  • Promote the appropriate uptake of generic and biosimilar medicines, with a decrease of out of pocket expenses for some consumers

For more details, go to Active Ingredient Prescribing

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Media contact

Ben Graham

E b.graham@chf.org.au
T:  02 6273 5444 
M: 0461 545 392