January 2025
News
In this issue
| Fee Changes From 1 January 2025 |
|
| Freeze on PBS patient co-payments and removal of allowable discount |
|
| Fred Help Christmas and New Year Hours |
|
| End-of-Year Process in Fred Dispense |
|
| When to Run the January Monthly Drug Update |
|
| Western Australia: S8 and S4 drugs require patient's date of birth |
|
| This Month's PBS Changes |
|
| Running the monthly update for Fred Dispense |
|
Fee Changes From 1 January 2025
Fees are mostly remaining the same except for the General Safety Net Threshold:
As part of the 8CPA agreement, there will be a 1-year freeze on PBS copayments for General Patients, and up to a 5-year freeze for concession patients.
|
Category |
Fees |
2024 |
From
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Dispensing fees |
Allowable additional patient charge |
$3.45 |
$3.45 |
|
Patient co-payment |
General Concessional |
$31.60 $7.70 |
$31.60 $7.70 |
|
Safety Net threshold |
General Concessional |
$1647.90 $277.20 |
$1694.00 $277.20 |
Copayment discounting changes
Copayment discounting will also be phased out with the following discounting rules to take effect from 1 January 2025
|
Category |
2024 |
From 1 January 2025 |
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Allowable discount |
General |
$1.00 |
$0.10 |
|
Concessional |
$1.00 |
$0.80 |
Freeze on PBS patient co-payments and removal of allowable discount
What is happening?
Currently both general and concessional PBS co-payments are indexed on 1 January each year, in line with the Consumer Price Index.
In 2024, the co-payments were $31.60 for general patients and $7.70 for concessional patients.
From 1 January 2025, the government will introduce:
-
a 1-year freeze on indexation for PBS co-payments for general patients
-
a 5-year freeze on indexation for PBS co-payments for concessional patients.
Currently, if the total cost of a PBS medicine is above a patient’s co-payment, pharmacists can reduce the co-payment for that patient by applying an allowable discount, up to an amount of $1, for each supply.
From 1 January 2025, the allowable discount (aka ‘$1 discount’) will be phased out (over 1 or 5 years) while annual increases to the general and concessional PBS co-payments are frozen.
The discount will decrease by the amount of indexation that would have otherwise applied to the general or concessional patient PBS co-payment, as relevant, until it reaches zero.
What will this look like for patients?
-
For general patients, the general PBS co-payment for the 2025 calendar year will remain at the level applying in 2024 – that is, a maximum of $31.60 for PBS medicines will be payable.
From 1 January 2026 onwards, the PBS co-payment will again be annually indexed in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
-
For concessional patients, from 1 January 2025 the concessional PBS co-payment will remain at the level applicable for 2024 for the next five calendar years – that is, a maximum of $7.70 for PBS medicines will be payable.
Fred Dispense changes to support the removal of discount
The Discount Rules screen has been updated.
If the price entered is less than the PBS allowable discounted price, the following messages will display:
General
Concession
Fred Help Christmas and New Year Hours
Fred Help will be available during Christmas and New Year.
Happy Holidays! We suggest that you print out this calendar and display it prominently in your dispensary during the festive season. This will ensure that all of your staff are aware of the hours they can contact us via the Fred Help Portal, should they require support.
Please refer to the Fred Service Summary for reference.
|
DATE |
FRED HELP OFFICE HOURS (AEDT) |
|---|---|
|
Monday 23 December 2024 |
8:00 AM – 9:00 PM |
|
Tuesday 24 December 2024 (Christmas Eve) |
8:00 AM – 9:00 PM |
|
Wednesday 25 December 2024 (Christmas Day) |
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM (Emergencies Only) |
|
Thursday 26 December 2024 (Boxing Day) |
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM (Emergencies Only) |
|
Friday 27 December 2024 |
8:00 AM – 9:00 PM |
|
Saturday 28 December 2024 |
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM |
|
Sunday 29 December 2024 |
8:00 AM –6:00 PM (Emergencies Only) |
|
Monday 30 December 2024 |
8:00 AM – 9:00 PM |
|
Tuesday 31 December 2024 |
8:00 AM – 9:00 PM |
|
Wednesday 1 January 2025 (New Year's Day) |
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM (Emergencies Only) |
|
From Thursday 2 January 2025 |
Normal support hours |
You can access the Fred Help Portal via the pink Help Portal icon on any of our Fred products or visit: cx.fred.com.au. You can also check the status of any other tickets raised in the portal as well.
End-of-Year Process in Fred Dispense
The end-of-year process must be run on your last trading day of the year after closing, or before opening on your first trading day of the new year. This process removes the previous year's Safety Net entitlement details, and prepares a “clean slate” for the new year. For details, see End-of-Year Process
When to Run the January Monthly Drug Update
The best time to run the first monthly drug update of the new year is immediately before or after running the end-of-year process.
If you do not run the drug update before the end of December, Fred Dispense will remind you to run it at the start of your first trading day in January.
Checking your NHS fees for the new year
NHS fees and markups are updated automatically in your monthly drug update, but we recommend you check your NHS fees table after running the update, to familiarise yourself with the new fees and ensure they have been updated correctly.
-
From the Setup menu, select NHS Fees.
Shortcut: Press Alt+S, then press N.
Non-standard fees
- If you click No, a blue message reminds you to check and adjust the fees manually.
- If you click Yes, the Drug Update continues with the standard fees.
Western Australia: S8 and S4 drugs require patient's date of birth
From 12 December 2024, changes in the Monitored Medicines Prescribing Code for Western Australia require a patient’s date of birth to be included on all S4 and S8 prescriptions.
https://www.health.wa.gov.au/articles/j_m/medicines-and-poisons-regulation/summary-of-changes
Unfortunately, as this information was not provided in time for the Fred Dispense January 2025 update, the prompt to enter patient’s date of birth for pharmacies in Western Australia will only be available in the February 2025 update.
This Month's PBS Changes
For the full Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits, go to the PBS website at http://www.pbs.gov.au/ where you can search the schedule by drug name.
For your convenience, we've also uploaded a printable summary of this month's important PBS changes to this site.
The next edition of the PBS Summary of Changes will be published here on 6 January. If you need this document sooner, it will be available from the Fred Help Portal on 1 January 2025.
For Highly Specialised Drugs (HSD) items (CAR and non-CAR), please refer to the Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits as well as Services Australia to confirm whether the PBS item code for a HSD is eligible to be dispensed and claimed by your pharmacy type.