Assignment - The Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme

Running head: AUSTRALIAN PHARMACEUTICAL BENEFITS SCHEME
The Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the Consumption of Medicines in
Australia
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Name of the University
Author Note

1AUSTRALIAN PHARMACEUTICAL BENEFITS SCHEME
Highest consumption rates of medicines occurs mostly in Australia in comparison to
the other countries round the world. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) scheme is
designed to fund the medical costing of the general community. The scheme is thought to be
helpful because it provides the general race of the Australian population to get an easy access
of the commonly prescribed medicines which are widely available in the market, affordable
and at the same time have acceptable standards. However, the cost of the PBS that has been
exclusively designed to help the ex-service men women in Australia is increasing each year
(Duckett et al., 2013). The following essay sheds lights on the cost of the medicine
consumption in Australia via detailed analysis of the PBS scheme. The essay also tries to
elucidate the shortcomings of the PBS and the possible recommendation.
The Scenario of the Cost of Medicine Consumption in Australia
In order to speak about the cost of the medicine consumption in Australia, the first
thing which comes into consideration is PBS. The Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme (PBS) is
one of the major schemes that define the various aspects of the Australian health care system.
The Government of Australia have subsidised the cost of the broad range of the prescript
medications for all the residents of Australia who possess the Medical cards (Blanch, Pearson
& Haber, 2014). The consumers in the country only pays a set form of price that are been
protected from the high costs by the arrangements of the safety nets. The major part of the
medicines are that comes under the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme are generally dispensed
through the pharmacies of the community. However, some of the medicines does not comes
under PBS, are only available at the country hospitals.
The government with all its persuasions have been observing the growth of the
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS). In past ten years between 1994 to 1995 and 2004 to
2005, the costs of the PBS have grown nearly about 13 percent every year. The growths have

2AUSTRALIAN PHARMACEUTICAL BENEFITS SCHEME
also slowed down and the average annual growth rates have fallen down by 4.86 percent from
the year 2005 -06 to the year 2013-14 (Chrysant, 2016). The more recent form of the
expenditure has revised its expenditure and it has slowed down in the recent years. The
Parliament Budget office has predicted that the rise in the growth will be around 4 to 5
percent annually for the longer term. The slower form of growth in the expenditure of PBS
have been attributed in the parts that have the impacts on the discrete policies of pricing and
the co payments and the safety nets that have been introduced in the year 2005.
Despite having the overall trend towards the huge form of contractions in the growth
of Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, there is several number of programs of the
Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme that have been showing the average rates of the growth
(Chrysant, 2016). Most importantly, the efficient funding for Chemotherapy has an annual
growth rate about 62.61%. Moreover, the highly specialized forms of the drug program have
an increased form of the growth of about 6.38% annually (Lal et al., 2017). This form of the
increase has been noted in the recent form of the reports that have been trending on the
increase in the growth by the department of the Health and by Medicines, Australia. This
report has suggested that these programs have been largely unaffected by the vast amount of
the changes of the co payments that have been introduced in the year 2005.
The drugs that are been listed under the Pharmaceutical Benefits scheme should be
clinically very much cost effective. However, some of the drugs are used for the treatments of
the rare form of the diseases that does not meet all of these criteria (Lal et al., 2017).
However, it has been observed that the medicines are clinically very effective, they are
expensive at a prohibitive rate and rarely very much cost effective. The Life Saving Drugs
Program (LSDP) bestows significant financial assistance to the patients who are in an urgent
need of expensive and ‘life saving’ drugs which are not listed under the PBS.

3AUSTRALIAN PHARMACEUTICAL BENEFITS SCHEME
Figure 1: The table shows the annual price increase of the Drugs
Source: http://tommytoy.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f3a4072c970b014e5f20aa6f970c-popup