How to manage your Medicare Safety Net

How to check your Medicare Safety Net threshold, and let us know if your family situation changes.

Checking your Medicare Safety Net threshold

You can check your threshold amount at any time through either your:

You can also call the Medicare program.

Reaching a Medicare Safety Net threshold

If you’re an individual with no dependants, we’ll keep a tally of your out-of-pocket and gap amounts. Once you’ve reached the threshold, we’ll pay the higher benefit for the rest of the calendar year.

If you’re a registered family or couple, you’ll need to confirm who’s in your family before you can get the higher benefits.

Read more about what the Medicare Safety Nets thresholds are.

If you haven’t registered for Medicare Safety Net as a family or couple, find out how to register.

Confirming your family

When your family is close to reaching a Medicare Safety Net threshold, we’ll ask you to confirm who’s in your family. We’ll notify the nominated contact person for your family either by a myGov Inbox message or by post. The contact person may be you or someone else in your family.

If you’re the contact person or their partner, you can confirm your family online by using either:

If you need help using your online account, read our online guide for how to confirm your Medicare Safety Net family.

If you can’t confirm your family online, you can either:

  • call the Medicare program
  • complete the Family Safety Net Confirmation form we sent the contact person, if we notified them by post.

Letting us know when your family situation changes

If there are any changes to who’s in your registered Medicare Safety Net family, it’s important to let us know. You should let us know if any of the following happens:

  • you become a member of a couple
  • you have a baby
  • you adopt a child
  • you and your partner separate
  • your dependent child leaves your care.

You can let us know by either:

Page last updated: 20 June 2022.