>From the IT pages of The Australian (although I thought that "scrip" was something that was used instead of money...):
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,18136648%5E15317%5E%5Enbv%5E15306,00.html The punch line is in the final paragraph, so read to the end. <begin quote> Feds cough up for scrip code Karen Dearne FEBRUARY 14, 2006 PHARMACY software vendors have been paid almost $550,000 to incorporate federal changes to the PBS Safety Net intended to halt the end-of-year rush to fill repeat prescriptions at the concession price. Changes to the software were necessary to enforce the new 20-day rule, which prevents people stockpiling medicines. In particular, the measure is aimed at stopping patients who only qualify for PBS concessions late in the year obtaining repeats of their scrips before their eligibility expires on December 31. The provision is expected to save the government $70 million over the four years to 2008-09. Market leaders PCA Nu Systems and Cosmos were paid $116,500 and $114,900 respectively to incorporate the changes into the software they supply to pharmacists. Six other small software vendors were paid between $57,500 and $50,300 to make the adjustments. As a result, all pharmacy software will now include prompts and dialog boxes to manage the 20-day rule, and adjust the amounts billed to patients under the PBS Safety Net program, along with claims information and pharmacists' receipts. The Department of Health's decision to pay for the modifications represents a win for the medical software sector, which has previously complained that the federal government expected vendors to do its programming work free of charge. Meanwhile, the Health Department has paid HCN an annual fee of $110,000 for access to the GP software company's Health Network databases. HCN, which sells the leading Medical Director product, has come under fire for selling data collected from doctors' desktops. Human Solutions, a Hobart company, has received a six-months fee of $180,000 for hosting the National Public Toilet Map website. The Australian <end quote> The DoHA web site in question is at http://www.toiletmap.gov.au - you can keep an online list of your favourite public toilets and even download a GPX waypoint file for your GPS device to tell you how far and in what direction your favourite public toilets are, no matter where you are on the globe. The miracles of modern technology... (Suitable musical accompaniment from my record collection: http://www.mp3sugar.com/focus/mother-focus/i-need-a-bathroom-194956.m3u ) Tim C _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
