Hiya

The safety net resets each year at 1st January, so the earlier in the year you start your cycles, the more cycles you can fit in under the safety net.

It basically kicks in once you reach a particular threshold of out of pocket expenses (only on medicare stuff, as opposed to all medical things like the medical expenses rebate for tax) and then you get rebated 80% of your out of pocket expenses (on medicare items). It's not as good as it used to be, as they've put caps on IVF and obstetric costs, but you do still get some benefit.

Another thing is to look at your private health. We upped our cover to top hospital as it covered the hospital part of the IVF (ie the egg collection) and the anaesthetist so to up the cover cost us more but saved us about $500 per collection.