July 2025
News
In this issue
| Fee changes applicable from 1 July 2025 |
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| ACSS payments to approved pharmacists to be automated from 1 July 2025 |
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| What's New in Fred Dispense |
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| Say hello to AIFred...our new customer service chatbot |
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| Catch up with the Fred Team this August in Sydney and Perth |
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| End of financial year and stocktaking help |
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| This Month's PBS Changes |
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Fee changes applicable from 1 July 2025
Fees
The following fees, patient contributions, and Safety Net thresholds apply from 1 July 2025 and are included, where applicable, in prices published in the Schedule.
|
Fee Type |
Fee |
|
|---|---|---|
|
Dispensing Fees |
Ready-prepared |
$8.88 |
|
Dangerous drug fee |
$5.50 |
|
|
Extemporaneously-prepared |
$10.92 |
|
|
Allowable additional patient charge* |
$3.45 |
|
|
Additional Fees (for safety net prices) |
Ready-prepared |
$1.48 |
|
Extemporaneously-prepared |
$1.91 |
|
|
Patient Co-payments |
General |
$31.60 |
|
Concessional |
$7.70 |
|
|
Safety Net Thresholds |
General |
$1694.00 |
|
Concessional |
$277.20 |
|
|
Safety Net Card Issue Fee |
$12.38 |
|
* The allowable additional patient charge is a discretionary charge to general patients if a pharmaceutical item has a dispensed price for maximum quantity less than the general patient co-payment. The pharmacist may charge general patients the allowable additional fee but the fee cannot take the cost of the prescription above the general patient co-payment for the medicine. This fee does not count towards the Safety Net threshold.
Administration, Handling, and Infrastructure (AHI) fees
| Tier 1 | For a maximum quantity of a listed brand with a price to pharmacists less than $100 | $4.91 per dispense* |
| Tier 2 | For a maximum quantity of a listed brand with a price to pharmacists from $100 to $2,000 | $4.91, plus 5% of the amount by which the price to pharmacists exceeds $100, per dispense* |
| Tier 3 | For a maximum quantity of a listed brand with a price to pharmacists more than $2,000 | $99.91 per dispense* |
* There is no change to the basis of the payment of the total mark-up / AHI (i.e. – in the table above, per dispense means per listed PBS item maximum quantity (MQ) supplied. Fee is calculated from the per pack price with AHI applied for maximum quantity, proportionate to the number of packs required for maximum quantity, and will be adjusted if less or more than the maximum quantity is supplied).
Chemotherapy fees
| Fee Type | Fee | |
|---|---|---|
| Section 90 Community Pharmacy (incl. section 92 approved practitioners) | Ready Prepared Dispensing Fee | $8.88 |
| Preparation Fee | $91.23 | |
| Distribution Fee | $30.71 | |
| Diluent Fee | $6.08 | |
| Section 94 Approved Private Hospital Authority | Ready Prepared Dispensing Fee | $8.88 |
| Preparation Fee | $91.23 | |
| Distribution Fee | $30.71 | |
| Diluent Fee | $6.08 | |
If you have set non-standard fees, check them on the NHS Dispensing Fees and Markup window ([Alt+S] > [N]) after all of the updates have run.
ACSS payments to approved pharmacists to be automated from 1 July 2025
ACSS payments for eligible supplies from 1 July 2025 will be included with regular PBS online claims payments. Payments for the periods ending 30 March 2025 and 30 June 2025 will continue to be made manually in July and October 2025.
The ACSS has been legislated in the National Health Act 1953, and has two components:
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ACSS Component 1 A payment for each supply of a Commonwealth subsidised PBS or RPBS prescription of a section 85 medicine with increased dispensing quantities by an approved pharmacist, when supplied at the full maximum dispensing quantity; and
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ACSS Component 2 A payment for each supply of a Commonwealth subsidised PBS or RPBS prescription of a section 85 medicine dispensed by an approved pharmacist.
For more information, see New payments under the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement on the PBS website.
What's New in Fred Dispense
ACSS Changes in Fred Dispense
When an item is dispensed that is eligible for ACSS Component 1 or ACSS Component 2, Fred Dispense will claim these payments from PBS.
Fred Dispense has been updated to display the ACSS Payments, where relevant.
Wait Screen
The ACSS payment figures shown above are for FY 2024-2025. The exact figures are subject to change. See New payments under the Eighth Community Pharmacy Agreement on the PBS website.
Script Analysis Report
When you select Reports > Script > Script Analysis, the Include Incentives? filter has been relabelled Include ACSS payments?
When Include ACSS payments? is set to Y, the ACSS breakdown is displayed in the Script Analysis Report.
PBS Online Summary Reconciliation Report Changes
The PBS Online Summary Reconciliation Report has been updated to display the ACSS Component 1 and ACSS Component 2 payments.
When you select Activities > PBS Online Report Parameters > S, the resulting report will include the following:
PBS Online Report footer changes
The footnotes and legend at the bottom of the following PBS Online Reports have been updated for 8CPA Reporting.
The footer now displays as follows:
Note that the meaning of footnotes (superscripts) on the reports is now different. For example, 1 previously meant both incentives paid, but now 1 means ACSS Component 1 paid.
Say hello to AIFred...our new customer service chatbot
Your new Fred virtual assistant is now live and ready to help you get quick answers, troubleshoot issues, and guide you to the right place.
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Access support anytime, anywhere, even outside of regular business hours.
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Get immediate answers to your queries without waiting in a queue.
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Benefit from help tailored to your needs or routing to the correct support team.
Visit the Fred Help Portal to chat with AIFred today!
End of financial year and stocktaking help
It's nearly time for End of Financial Year Reporting and Stocktaking. To assist you with these processes, refer to the following Fred Office Plus resources:
Important reminder for department stocktakes
If you plan to do a department stocktake, make sure that all product items are assigned to a department. Otherwise, items will be missing from your stock count.
How to make sure items are assigned to departments in Fred Office Plus
- Select Reporting > Inventory Reports > Item Pricing Details.
- Click Open Report.
- Select the No Department checkbox and then click Run Report.
- For each product item in the list, assign it to a department:
- Double click an item to display the stock card.
- Select a Department.
- Click Save and Close.
As a shortcut, you can do this in bulk using the Quick Action Wizard. Select multiple lines, then right-click, select Perform Quick Action and then follow the steps in the Wizard.
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.
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.