Tim Churches wrote: snip
>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. > > I suppose there is something in this but not a lot. While there is certainly stockpiling before the end of the year, that merely delays the date when they are forced to return and pay full price in the next year and hence prevents or delays them reaching the threshold for that year. >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. > > This is probably reasonable but once again reinforces the fact that the end users in the health arena are only one group shaping software design and function. Such changes are not necessarily in their best interests. >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. > > I suppose we can presume that is not for data mining. Or is this OK if the Feds do it? David -- "UFW. Deb does linux." SIP [EMAIL PROTECTED] NodePhone +61 7 31290168 Jabber [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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