Generally, Medicare and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) payments or services supplied to the public are Goods and Services Tax (GST) free. This applies to:
- Medicare benefits
- medicines supplied under the PBS
- income tested rebate on private health insurance.
However, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has advised that GST should apply to some payments. These include:
- pharmacies, pharmacists and other approved dispensers
- radiation-oncology clinics
- colostomy and ileostomy associations, and paraplegic and quadriplegic associations
- wholesale medicine suppliers for the Botox and in-vitro fertilisation or gamete intra-fallopian transfer programs
- simplified billing agents
- software suppliers.
Under those circumstances, the payment itself is deemed under GST law to be a ‘consideration for a supply’ - that is, a payment for a service that you are deemed to be rendering to us or the Australian Government.
As a result, we need to collect some information from you to ensure that you continue to get Medicare payments in full.
Find out more about Goods and Services Tax for the PBS.