The PBS Safety Net further reduces the cost of PBS prescription medicines for individuals and families who reach a threshold. You can help your patients by:
- keeping track of their PBS medicines in your dispensing software
- encouraging them to combine their family PBS amounts so they can reach the threshold sooner
- giving them a PBS Safety Net card for use at other pharmacies to get PBS medicines.
Your patients must be eligible for the PBS to get their medicines at the PBS Safety Net cheaper rate. Read more about patient eligibility for the PBS.
The PBS Safety Net thresholds are the spending amounts your patients need to reach before getting even cheaper PBS medicines. They’re updated on 1 January every year.
This table shows the 2025 PBS Safety Net thresholds and how much your patients pay before and after they reach the threshold.
| Rates for 2025 | General customer | Commonwealth concessional entitlement card holder |
|---|---|---|
| Contribution before reaching the PBS Safety Net threshold | Up to $31.60 | Up to $7.70 |
| PBS Safety Net Threshold | $1,694.00 | $277.20 |
| PBS Safety Net prescription contribution | $7.70 | $0 |
Closing the Gap prescriptions for general patients, with a cost greater than the general co-payment amount, will count towards the PBS Safety Net threshold at the amount of $42.50.
If your patient chooses a more expensive brand of medicine, they may need to pay more. The extra amount won’t count towards their PBS Safety Net threshold.
Your patients can keep track of their PBS medicines.
You need to charge the first PBS medicine that reaches or exceeds the PBS Safety Net threshold, at the reduced rate. This dispensed PBS medicine is the first prescription that can be supplied with a PBS Safety Net card. This is known as the threshold prescription.
For example, a general patient gives you a prescription to fill. The medicine will cost $15.50. Their prescription record form is $10 under the general threshold amount. The cost of the medicine you supply will put them over the threshold. You can issue a Safety Net concession card and charge the concessional rate for that prescription.
In another example, a concessional patient gives you a prescription to fill. The medicine will cost $7.70. Their prescription record form is $269.50. The cost of the medicine will reach the threshold exactly. You can issue a Safety Net entitlement card and supply the prescription free of charge.
You can issue a safety net card and supply the whole prescription at the safety net amount if the medicine being supplied is Section 49 and reaches the threshold exactly or exceeds their threshold. Section 49 was previously Regulation 24.
You can’t issue the PBS Safety Net card until you’re dispensing the prescription that will exactly reach or exceed the PBS Safety Net threshold. The patient’s prescription record form can either:
- not show the threshold prescription
- show the threshold prescription, even if the amount is zero.