The pandemic not only brought a drastic shift in healthcare practices, it also brought a flurry of paper being printed and stored in pharmacies. This led to mountains of paperwork being stored in pharmacies, taking up valuable space, often only destined to be pulled out to be shredded a couple of years later.
The printing and retention of HSE PCRS supporting paperwork was a focal point of discussions between the IPU and the HSE PCRS to reduce the administrative burden on community pharmacies. Following these discussions, from 1 April 2025 pharmacies were no longer be required to print unified claim forms (receipts) for community drug schemes, except in exceptional circumstances. This new arrangement is set out in HSE PCRS circular 007/25.
For pharmacies selected to submit end of month supporting paperwork (‘yellow bags’):
Sufficient advance notice will be provided to community pharmacy contractors to enable them to prepare their end of month supporting paperwork (‘yellow bags’) for the selected month for submission to the PCRS. For example, pharmacy contractors selected to submit their paperwork for July will receive a letter of notification in June.
For pharmacies not selected to submit end of month supporting paperwork: There is no PCRS requirement to print and retain end of month paperwork (such as UCFs) and it is at the discretion of the pharmacy as to whether to print and retain this paperwork or not. However, there is still a legal requirement to print, stamp and endorse Healthmail prescriptions.
Under the new arrangement pharmacies will only have to print and submit paperwork for the following:
The following formats are required should you be requested to submit your yellow bag. All prescriptions should have the form number, pharmacy stamp and endorsement on the paperwork.
General Medical Services (GMS) Scheme
Drug Payment Scheme (DPS), Long Term Illness (LTI) Scheme and Health Amendment Act (HAA)
High-Tech Arrangement
*High-Tech invoice must also be submitted with the claim
Hospital Emergency Scheme
Free Contraception Scheme
European Economic Area Arrangement (EEA)
Dental Treatment Service Scheme — DTSS (DE)
Doctor Stock Order (SO)
Manual Claims (must be forwarded to the HSE no later than 14 days after the last day of the month, can be submitted separately to the yellow bag if necessary)
Pharmacies should submit their paperwork as per the PCRS payment schedule and submission calendar available on the IPU website ipu.ie > Contract.
The PCRS will correspond with pharmacies by letter. Sufficient advance notice will be given when a pharmacy is selected to submit their end of month supporting paperwork (yellow bag).
Third party verification, where a patient is required to sign for their prescription, is not required until further notice.
Yes, the PCRS will continue to request invoices through Healthmail when required to support the accuracy of claims.
Yes, there is still a legal requirement under the Medicinal Products (Prescription and Control of Supply) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 (S.I. No. 98 of 2020):
‘6(7) in the case of a prescription transmitted by the national electronic prescription transfer system, the person dispensing the prescription shall—
(a) print the prescription as transmitted and treat it as an original prescription for the purposes of record-keeping, and
(b) preserve and keep available for inspection for a period of two years from the relevant date that printed copy and the electronic version of the prescription.’
Full recordkeeping requirements are available at ipu.ie > Professional > SOPs and Guidelines support > IPU Guidance Documents > IPU record keeping in community pharmacy guidance – November 2024.
Yes, this is still required should a patient have a clinical need for the branded drug or when a GP requests a patient to be issued their prescription on a phased basis.
The process of verifying prescriptions is to ensure that your supporting paperwork matches your electronic claim file. Therefore, this process will only be required during the month the supporting paperwork is requested.
However, it is still important to review your claims before submission to ensure that all claims are accurately submitted and to reduce the risk of rejected claims. Pharmacies should speak to their vendor provider about functionalities that may help to identify errors (for example, submitting a 61559 prescriber code on GMS) and claim duplication.
It is at the discretion of each pharmacy as to whether to issue prescription receipts to private patients, but bear in mind that prescription receipts may still be required to claim reimbursement for medicines from public bodies, health insurers and medical device reimbursement.
We suggest discussing this with your patients as to suitable alternatives, for example, print and/or e-mail MED1 reports when requested by a patient.
If you have any further queries, please e-mail contract@ipu.ie.
Linda Ahern
Claims Analyst, IPU
Highlighted Articles
