AHA is the administration agency for the CSO Funding Pool. The pool ensures that all Australians have timely access to the PBS medicines they need, regardless of where they live.

The pool provides almost $200 million a year in payments to eligible CSO distributors who supply the full range of PBS medicines to pharmacies across Australia within 24 to 72 hours, regardless of location and the relative cost of supply.

This ensures that all of Australia’s 5,800 community pharmacies can order any brand of PBS medicine and have it delivered in 1 to 3 days.

AHA has administered the CSO Funding Pool since 2007. Our role involves several complex functions, including:

• securely collecting, storing and analysing around 2 million lines of confidential data per month
• calculating around $200 million of payments to eligible CSO distributors every year
• making sure CSO distributors meet the CSO Service Standards and Compliance Requirements
• administering a complaints process and a sanctions framework.

More information about the operation of the CSO Funding Pool and the obligations of CSO distributors is available on our CSO resources page.