Tax refund for medical expenses??? Medicare statement

[AnyDream]

Yep tested this today. The lady at Medicare said she could order it for me & it would be posted out several weeks into July. Or I could register for online services and view it myself. Caveat- if you are partnered you can only access your own records & your partner will need to register for theirs.

[melbel]

also even if your partner is on your card you can't pick up their statement from the medicare office if you go in for them...they have to do it themselves...got caught out with that one too......you can get your children's though, just not your husbands!

[Yael]

Yep, as everyone said, anything that you have claimed from a doctor through medicare, medicare keeps a record of. You can access it online (super easy to sign up for), but you can't access your spouses details (so I signed DH up so I can check his also when doing our tax).

I asked previously our accountant, and it is fine for him to claim my medical expenses, as I have no income, and he is technically supporting me.

Also, with medicines the threshold to get the $5.40 script is actually once you have exceeded 24 scripts.. Which is annoying, i get to around 20 and we pay at least $2k OOP for medicines for me each year

You would be suprised by what you claim. It is pretty much anything at the direction of a doctor, so physio, medicines, over the counter pharmacy only medication at the direction of a doctor to treat a specific condition (so my daughter was anaemic, so I could claim her iron supplements, it has to be something that you can't buy in a supermarket and it can't be pain relief related), dental, dietician, ot, speech therapy, psychology, etc. There is a lot that you can claim, sleep apnoea machines etc. We put in for a private tax ruling last year (very easy, there is directions online how to do it, and they give examples of the rulings that have won etc so you can base your claim on that) in relation to OT aides, which was granted.

You can claim back 20% above $1500 OOP (which i think is stupid, once you have expenses that high, you should qualify and get the 20% off the $1500 also). For example, last year our OOP was almost $4000. We can only claim 20% of $2500 which is $500. That's not a lot back when you have so many medical expenses.

[briggsy's girl]

I think you can register to get it online on their site too.

i am registered on the medicare site and yes, you can check (and download) from there

[M D]

The threshold for this finaciql year has increased to $2000. So any expenses over $2000 you get back .20c in the dollar.

[Mak]

Excellent help everyone thanks! Dh mentioned the threshold change too - I got braces about 3 months ago so good timing for us as I believe it will be means tested from next year also. xx