Minor Ailments Service (MAS)

From 12 June to 30 September 2023 participating pharmacies from priority areas may provide the Community Pharmacy Minor Ailments Service (MAS). The scheme allows eligible pharmacies to consult and provide treatment for a range of minor health conditions. (Please refer to Te Whatu Ora https://www.tewhatuora.govt.nz/for-the-health-sector/community-pharmacy/community-pharmacy-minor-ailment-service/ for more information.)

Toniq’s latest program update enables pharmacies to claim the subsidised MAS medicines through the normal dispensing and electronic claiming process.

Dispensing:

A new prescription code, C, has been added to the Dispensary program for dispensing medicines under the MAS. The C code will price prescriptions with a zero co-payment (like the X code), and prescriptions will not count to prescription subsidy card count. Currently this new code is being used for the MAS, but it is intended that this code will be used for other purposes in future. Therefore, no extra Toniq validation is done when the C prescription code is used (e.g. checking whether the dispensed medicine is subsidised under MAS).

There is a list of approved medicines and treatment aids for dispensing under the MAS. Whilst most are subsidised on the Pharmac Schedule, and so claimable through the batch, this is not possible for the treatment aids. The 5mL BD Syringe (pharmacode 201952), 10mL BD Syringe (2029758), and Parasidose Head Lice Comb (2185083) will need to be processed non-subsidised (NS) in Dispensary, at no charge to the patient, and then claimed via the portal nominated by Te Whatu Ora.

Consultation:

Toniq Dispensary has a template, TQ Minor Ailments (MAS) Consult, to print and/or use in Dispensary to record the consultation. There is also a MAS Consultation Fee stock card (pharmacode 2658453) which can be used to track the number of consultations. For it to price correctly, the 'Fee' tick-box needs to be set. 

Claiming of consultation fees and treatment aids will be through one of two local pharmacy portals. Details of the portals will be provided by Te Whatu Ora upon acceptance of the MAS contract.

Portal integration:

Toniq is working with the portal vendors to streamline the process of entering data into the portals. This will reduce the amount of duplication required to record consultations.

At the time of writing the portal vendors are still investigating solutions to enable Toniq to integrate.

However, you can create a shortcut to your portal using the quick access shortcuts in Toniq under F1 Help (details can be found here).