AMNOG with burdens on pharmacies

Politicians are satisfied with the new supply concept

08/10/2011

The Pharmaceuticals Market Reorganization Act (AMNOG) sometimes entails considerable burdens for the pharmacists, while the new regulations are a model of success for politicians.

Pharmacists are being burdened considerably by the German Pharmaceutical Market Reorganization Act (AMNOG), but for the time being no further changes are planned by the politicians. Although the government representatives of CDU and FDP were quite willing to talk about a fairer remuneration of pharmacists. For the time being, however, the AMNOG will continue in its current form.

At the German Pharmacists' Day in Dusseldorf, the health spokesman for the CDU / CSU parliamentary group, Jens Spahn, emphasized that the governing coalition was „also (can) imagine compensation models that are not based solely on a package-related lump sum.“ At the same time, however, the health politician also made it clear to the pharmacists that they should not hope for a premature end to the AMNOG burdens. Because the supply concept developed by the Kassenärztlicher Bundesvereinigung (KBV) and the Federal Association of German Pharmacists Associations (ABDA) is consistently supported by the governing parties. According to the Federal Government, the AMNOG offers a good option for securing a qualitative improvement in the supply of medicines in the long term. The coalition is well aware of that, „that she is asking the pharmacists a lot this year and next“, stressed Spahn. The model finds support not only in the governing parties, as the FDP spokesman Heinz Lanfermann explained, but in the opposition, the AMNOG also has numerous advocates. For example, Die Linke, the concept developed by the ABDA and the KBV, illustrates how health politician of the left, Kathrin Vogler, made clear. (Fp)

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Picture: Matthias Balzer