How to get a health care or concession card

If you receive a Centrelink payment, check what came with it before doing anything else. JobSeeker Payment, Youth Allowance, Parenting Payment, ABSTUDY and several other payments generate a Health Care Card automatically. Age Pension, Disability Support Pension, Carer Payment and other pension payments generate a Pensioner Concession Card. Family Tax Benefit Part A at the maximum rate also generates a Health Care Card. If you have one of these payments and no card, something has gone wrong and it is worth ringing.

If you receive no payment but your income is low, the Low Income Health Care Card is the one to claim. The test looks at your income over the eight weeks immediately before you claim, not the financial year, which matters enormously: someone who has just lost a job, reduced hours, or come off parental leave can qualify on recent income even though their annual income looks too high. This is the most commonly missed entitlement in the system.

The Low Income Health Care Card has no assets test. A person with substantial savings or a paid-off home can hold one if their recent income is below the threshold. People routinely rule themselves out on assets grounds that do not exist.

If you are over Age Pension age and do not receive the Age Pension, the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card is designed for exactly your situation. It is income tested on adjusted taxable income plus deemed income from account-based pensions, and it has no assets test. Self-funded retirees who were refused the Age Pension on assets frequently qualify for this and never apply.

Foster carers can obtain a Foster Child Health Care Card for a child in their care, which is issued in the child's name and is not affected by the carer's own income. It is separate from any card the carer holds.

Ex-service personnel and war widows may hold Department of Veterans' Affairs cards, which work differently again and provide access to treatment as well as concessions. If you have any DVA entitlement, check it before claiming a Centrelink card, because the treatment card is generally more valuable.

You can only hold one Commonwealth concession card at a time in most circumstances, and if you qualify for more than one you will generally be issued the more advantageous. Where a payment stops, the card usually stops with it, though some payments carry an extended card period after the payment ends.

Confirm which card you are claiming before you start. The Low Income Health Care Card and the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card have different tests and different claim forms, and claiming the wrong one wastes weeks. If you are under Age Pension age with low recent income, it is the Low Income card. If you are over pension age and were refused or did not claim the Age Pension, it is the Seniors card.

Set up or check your Centrelink online account through myGov. If you have never had a Centrelink record you will need a Customer Reference Number, which means proving your identity to the 100-point standard before you can lodge anything. Doing this first prevents a claim expiring while you gather documents.

Gather income evidence covering the right period. For the Low Income Health Care Card that means payslips, bank statements or a separation certificate covering the eight weeks before the claim. For the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card it means your adjusted taxable income and details of any account-based income streams, which are deemed rather than counted at their actual drawdown rate.

Include your partner's income. Both cards apply a combined income test for couples, and understating a partner's income is the most common cause of a card being cancelled and a debt raised later. Deemed income from investments counts even where you take nothing out.

Lodge the claim online and upload documents through the same channel. Note the receipt number. Claims delayed because a document was posted and not matched to the file are avoidable and frustratingly common.

When the card arrives, add it to the Express Plus Centrelink app or download the digital version. A digital card is accepted wherever the plastic one is, and having it on your phone matters at a pharmacy counter when the physical card is at home.

Then do the second half of the job immediately: apply for the state and territory concessions the card unlocks. Energy rebates, transport concession cards, motor vehicle registration discounts, council rates reductions and water bill concessions each require a separate application to a separate body. None of them will contact you.

The clearest federal saving is on prescription medicines. Concession card holders pay a substantially lower co-payment for PBS medicines than general patients, and the difference compounds quickly for anyone on multiple long-term prescriptions. The exact co-payment is indexed annually, so the figure to rely on is the current one published by Services Australia.

The PBS Safety Net matters more than the per-script saving for people with high medicine use. Once your household's PBS spending in a calendar year passes a threshold, further prescriptions become cheaper again — and the concession threshold is dramatically lower than the general one. Reaching it means most of your remaining medicines for the year cost nothing. You have to track your scripts across pharmacies to claim it, or use one pharmacy so their records do it for you.

Bulk billing becomes more likely, though it is never guaranteed. Medicare pays general practices a higher bulk billing incentive for concession card holders and children, and the incentive is higher again in regional and remote areas. That changes practice economics enough that many clinics that charge working-age adults will bulk bill a card holder. It remains the doctor's decision.

The Medicare Safety Net is a separate mechanism from the PBS one and applies to out-of-hospital medical costs rather than medicines. Concession card holders have a lower threshold for the original Medicare Safety Net. Families and couples must register to have their costs combined, which is not automatic and is widely missed.

State and territory concessions are where the larger money usually is. Typical entitlements include an annual electricity or energy rebate, a gas rebate, water bill concessions, a discount on motor vehicle registration and driver licences, public transport concession fares, reduced council rates, and in some states ambulance cover. Each is administered by a different agency with its own application.

Businesses and community organisations offer concession pricing that has nothing to do with government: cinemas, museums, some legal and dental services, and many local government facilities. These are entirely discretionary and worth asking about rather than assuming.

Put together, the annual value of a concession card for a household that claims everything it is entitled to is typically several hundred dollars and can be well over a thousand where there are significant medicine costs, energy bills and vehicle registration. The value of a card whose holder claims only the pharmacy discount is a fraction of that.

Cards expire and are reissued on different cycles. Automatic cards are generally reissued while the underlying payment continues. The Low Income Health Care Card runs for a set period and must be renewed, and Services Australia writes to you before it expires — to the address on file, which is why keeping contact details current is not optional.

Income changes must be reported. For the Low Income Health Care Card, income is retested at renewal rather than continuously, but you are still obliged to tell Services Australia if your circumstances change materially. For the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card, income is reviewed and a rise above the threshold ends eligibility.

Losing a payment does not always mean losing the card immediately. Several payments carry an extended concession card period after the payment stops — for example when someone returns to work — and that transitional period exists specifically so the loss of a payment does not also mean an immediate jump in medicine costs. Ask about it rather than assuming the card ends when the payment does.

Going overseas affects cards as it affects payments. Concession cards are generally not valid while you are outside Australia for extended periods, and returning after a long absence can require a fresh claim. Check before a long trip, particularly for the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card, which has its own portability rules.

If a card is refused, ask for the reason in writing and check the income figure used. Deeming rates applied to financial investments are a frequent source of surprise for Commonwealth Seniors Health Card applicants, because deemed income can exceed actual income when rates are high. If the figure is wrong, request a formal review.

The review pathway is the standard one: ask for an explanation, request a formal review by an Authorised Review Officer, and if still dissatisfied apply to the Administrative Review Tribunal. There are time limits at each stage and free assistance from community legal services that specialise in social security.

Finally, if your circumstances change for the worse — hours cut, a business downturn, a relationship ending — re-test eligibility immediately rather than waiting for the financial year to end. The eight-week income test on the Low Income Health Care Card is designed for exactly that situation, and using it early is the difference between a card that helps now and one that arrives after the crisis.

A Medicare card is not a concession card. They are different documents doing different jobs: Medicare gives access to subsidised medical services for everyone eligible, while a concession card reduces costs further for people who meet an income test. Pharmacists need to see the concession card specifically to apply the concession price.

Show the card every time, not once. Pharmacies, medical practices and utilities apply the concession from the record on the day. A card presented once and never mentioned again produces a customer paying general rates on a concession entitlement, which is depressingly common with energy retailers in particular.

Tell your energy retailer directly. Most state energy rebates are applied by the retailer after you give them your card details and consent to a check, not by the state government paying you. If you switch retailers, the rebate does not follow — you must provide the details to the new one, and people lose the rebate at exactly the moment they switch to save money.

Children listed on your card get the concession rate too. Dependants included on a Health Care Card or Pensioner Concession Card access the same PBS co-payment. Where a child has significant medicine needs, confirm they are listed rather than assuming.

The PBS Safety Net requires records, not just a card. Use one pharmacy where possible so the tally is automatic, and ask for a Prescription Record Form if you use several. Households that split scripts across pharmacies routinely fail to reach a threshold they have already passed in reality.

Concession cards and private health insurance are unrelated. Holding a card does not affect your premium, your rebate tier or the Medicare levy surcharge, and holding hospital cover does not affect card eligibility.

If someone helps you manage your affairs, set up a nominee arrangement with Services Australia rather than sharing myGov credentials. A formal nominee can act on your behalf lawfully; a shared password creates problems for both of you and does not authorise anything.