PBS Safety Net for pharmacists

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.

Closing the Gap scripts 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.

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 script 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 must show the threshold prescription, even if the amount is zero.