Advanced Payments

Published: 09/09/23

Advance payments are made to support contractor cashflow while actual payment for the prescriptions submitted is calculated. 

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When pharmacies submit prescriptions to Practitioner Services, they are fully paid at dispensing month + 2 months (for prescriptions dispensed in January, they are submitted at the start of February and are paid at the end of March). 

The payment date set out in the drug tariff for the example above is the first working day of April, however, Practitioner Services frequently make this payment at or before the last working day in March.

The timelines involved are shown in the following graphic below:

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This means that each monthly payment is made up of components from different dispensing months as shown below:

Payment made	Recovery of advance from	Total due for month	Advance for
March	January prescriptions (which was paid in February)	January prescriptions	February Prescriptions
April	February Prescriptions (which was paid in March)	February Prescriptions	March Prescriptions
May	March Prescriptions (which was paid in April)	March Prescriptions	April Prescriptions

To support contractors’ cash flow while the reconciliation happens, an advance payment of 100% of the last 12 month’s average gross total monthly payment is made (in the above example at the end of January). 

Advanced payments for brand new contractors are explained in the payments to new contractors’ section.