Author: editorial staff "The Special Envoy" Date: Thursday, March 10, 2011
75 percent of equivalent medicines are reimbursed in full by the National Health Service, while 25 percent have a surcharge to pay, paid by the citizen. Yet the majority of medical prescriptions are for the most expensive medicines. The 'Dialogue on Medicines' association has tried to analyze the phenomenon, trying to enter into the merits of the causes and proposing some possible solutions.
Meanwhile, 'Dialogue on drugs' has tried to answer a first question: why are many drugs once called 'life-saving' no longer completely free as they should? “Much depends on the 'transparency list' of medicines that have lost their patents ('equivalents') – replies the association – published every month by the Medicines Agency, Aifa: the list is organized by active ingredient, type, dose, number of dosage units and reference price, i.e. that reimbursed by the National Health Service; however, the price to the public is missing, which often does not coincide with the one reimbursed. When the doctor consults the list, he therefore does not see the cost of the medicines, and cannot inform the patient, who pays any difference in price, with a few cents up to €50”. And if it is true that the pharmacist often suggests the free 'generic', “the customer often fears that it is not exactly the same product. And pay. More than transparency".
To date, there are 224 active ingredients no longer covered by the patent and included in the "transparency list". They belong to 83 different therapeutic groups and in all there are 4,052 medicines: "Of these - explains the association - no less than 3,024 (the 74 6 per cent of the total) have a public price similar to the reference price reimbursed by the NHS, and 33 have it even lower. The price of the remaining 995 drugs (24.6 percent of the total) is instead higher than that reimbursed by the NHS: those who prefer them over the others must therefore pay the difference. And here we find the anomaly: it turns out that 64 percent of medical prescriptions are for the most expensive drugs, which even make up 71 percent
