What you need to know
This step gives suitable applications an assessment pathway. The pathway determines whether our subcommittees need to consider your application before it comes to us.
How the pathway decision is made
To decide the assessment pathway, our secretariat and the relevant policy officers:
- consider the quality of your application
- look at the other factors they considered when they checked suitability, such as complexity and novelty
- check if we have previously considered a similar application
- may seek advice from the MSAC Executive.
The aim is to progress your application as efficiently as possible. There are 3 possible pathways:
- Standard pathway (the most common pathway) – applications that are more novel or complex are more likely to follow this pathway.
- Expedited pathway – applications with a clear PICO and re-applications are more likely to follow this pathway.
- Direct pathway – applications that are less complex are more likely to follow this pathway.
Examples of less complex applications include:
- applications for minor changes to an existing item on the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS)
- re-applications that address minor issues MSAC has previously raised.
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For these applications, our secretariat also decides whether to manage them as integrated or streamlined.
Our secretariat discusses this decision with the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) secretariat.
If our secretariat decides to manage your application as:
- integrated – it is more likely to follow the standard pathway or expedited pathway
- streamlined – it is more likely to follow the direct pathway.
What you need to do
You do not need to do anything in this step.
Outcome and next steps
The possible assessment pathway outcomes are:
- standard – your application will need both PASC and ESC consideration
- expedited – your application will need ESC consideration
- direct – your application will not need consideration by either subcommittee.
In the next step, you will receive notification of this outcome.
The outcome for a codependent PBAC application will also include whether it will be managed as integrated or streamlined.
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