—
Tag: pharmaceuticals
As results from the report on development of the debts in health care system, new management of Ministry of Health plans to continue in decreasing of expenses on pharmaceuticals from the public health insurance. Planned measures involve the de-listing of supportive and supplementary pharmaceuticals from the reimbursement from health insurance and tightening of the rules of price-referencing of the pharmaceuticals. Ministry also expects savings due to creation of central purchasing unit. This unit will, based on the comparison of prices of all institutions in the scope of MoH, recommend the purchase price.
Experts from the Association of Suppliers of Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices processed a detailed comparison of statistics on the real consumption of pharmaceuticals, development of the prices of pharmaceuticals in Slovakia and the impacts of pharmaceutical policy to the patients as well as to households. According to the statistics of Association the information about increasing consumption of pharmaceuticals in Slovakia allegedly seem to be targeted in order to push on the price policy of pharmaceutical companies. Experts claim that 2nd lowest price of pharmaceuticals in EU does not save money of patients, but, vice-versa, their supplementary charges are constantly rising and households are increasingly financing the Slovak healthcare.
According to the Slovak Association of Pharmaceutical Companies oriented on Research and Development there is a threat of economical unavailability of some pharmaceuticals in Slovakia. This may be due to the Decree on the method of determining a standard dose of the pharmaceutical, which determines the substitutability of groups of pharmaceuticals and states the so called group payment, where the amount of payment from insurance company is set by the lowest price of pharmaceutical in the group. According to the representatives of pharmaceutical industry its result is that there are top pharmaceuticals in one group together with obsolete ones, while insurance company pays the same price for all of them.
Ministry of Health has published new prices of pharmaceuticals, which should be valid from April. Association of suppliers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices is, however, convinced, that this have been done contrary to the law and constitution. Suppliers may still have pharmaceuticals in stock for old prices and now they will have to sell them in the intentions of Ministry. Suppliers of pharmaceuticals are expecting that due to this change their profits will decrease and in this case they are planning to ask for compensatory damages in accordance with the law on liability for damages caused by exercising of public authority.
Ministry of Health (MoH) wants to prohibit the advertising of over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. Ministry claims that this measure will save public money, but doctors and suppliers of pharmaceuticals doubt this. They warn that no country in EU have this kind of prohibition. MoH defends this proposal and claims that allowed advertising of the pharmaceutical in smaller package influenced the increased prescribing of the same pharmaceutical in larger package covered by the health insurance company. Pharmacists as well as doctors have doubts about this argument.
New decree of Ministry of Health will shift more pharmaceuticals to the category of supporting pharmaceuticals. This means that they will not be covered by insurance companies. About hundred of pharmaceuticals will be more expensive from April. New decree allows the shifting of 130 medicaments and 92 specific pharmaceuticals into the category of supporting, what means that patients will have to fully pay for them by themselves. Insurance companies will allegedly annually save on these pharmaceuticals more than € 16 million.
On Thursday, the Decree and Pricing measure of Ministry of Health will enter into force, under which doctors will be able to choose, whether they want to purchase the vaccines from pharmacy or from distributor. Pharmacies will thus loose a part of margin. According to spokeswoman of MoH the aim is that margin would be divided between two subjects – doctor and pharmacy. Doctors, however, are dissatisfied with the new measure and claim that not all of them will use this option. Vaccines are, according to them, expensive and doctors have to wait a long time for their reimbursement from the insurance companies.
Minister of Health wants the have a clear overview about how many pharmaceuticals are spend in the healthcare and how much they cost. Project Register of Consumption worth € 1.24 million was, however, implemented only in some state-owned hospitals. Minister reportedly chose only those hospitals, where at least one of the hospital systems comes from the company Stapro, which developed also the new system. Hospitals reportedly received instructions from the Ministry about whose system should be used in project.
After the Association of Suppliers of Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices also the Slovak Association of Pharmaceutical Companies oriented to the Research and Development is asking for enforcement of control mechanism on pharmaceutical export from Slovakia. The reason of increased consumption of pharmaceuticals is reportedly their re-export to foreign countries.
Association of Suppliers of Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices is requiring the implementation of the evidence of the export of Slovak pharmaceuticals abroad. Since December the price of pharmaceuticals in Slovakia shifted to the level of second lowest prices in EU and the re-export to the countries with higher prices is becoming an attractive business. Pharmaceutical companies have repeatedly pointed out that this may lead to the situation, when our market will miss some pharmaceuticals.
