Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) Safety Net 012-21052025

The PBS Safety Net reduces the cost of PBS prescription medicines for individuals and families once the applicable PBS Safety Net threshold has been reached in a calendar year. Anyone eligible for PBS subsidised medicines is eligible for the PBS Safety Net. Patients and their families need to keep track of their PBS expenditure using Prescription Record Form(s).

There are 2 PBS Safety Net thresholds - General and Concession. Thresholds are updated and published on the Services Australia and the Department of Health and Aged Care websites on 1 January each year.

General threshold

Patients who have a Medicare number but no concessional entitlement are considered general patients and pay the general co-payment for their prescriptions. Once the general threshold is reached in a calendar year, the pharmacy can issue a PBS Safety Net Concession Card (CN card). All eligible prescriptions for the remainder of the calendar year will be dispensed at the concession rate.

Concession threshold

Patients who hold a Centrelink or Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) concession entitlement are considered concession patients and pay the concession co-payment for their prescriptions. Once the concession threshold is reached in a calendar year, the pharmacy can issue a PBS Safety Net Entitlement Card (SN card). All eligible prescriptions for the remainder of the calendar year will be dispensed free of charge.

Additional charges

There are additional charges that do not count towards the PBS Safety Net threshold and must be paid by the patient even after the threshold has been reached and a PBS Safety Net card has been issued. Additional charges that may occur include brand premiums and allowable additional patient charges.

When satisfied that an individual or family has reached the applicable threshold and is entitled to the PBS Safety Net, the pharmacist should issue the appropriate PBS Safety Net card.

The pharmacist should include the following information on the PBS Safety Net card issued to the patient/family:

• The name and address of the card holder
• The names of the eligible family members covered and the relationship code that indicates their relationship to the cardholder:
• CH - cardholder or applicant
• SP - spouse
• DC - dependent child under 16 years
• DS - dependent full-time student under 25 years

The pharmacist needs to submit the following documents to Services Australia for processing within one month of issuing the Safety Net card:

• PBS Safety Net Claim for Payment form (PB241) or previous version of this form (PB017) which is still accepted for claiming purposes
• PBS Safety Net Prescription Record Form(s) (PRF) – all current and previous versions and any combination of PRFs are accepted