Green Recipes BAH takes positive stock

Green Recipes: BAH draws positive balance: Since January 2009, the Federal Association of pharmaceutical manufacturers (BAH) nationwide and free-of-charge doctors with 15 million of the so-called „Green recipes“ fitted. Critics see a pure stimulation of the sales of not verschisibungspflichtigen medicines in the initiative.

The Green Recipe was designed by the BAH together with the German Pharmacist Association and the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians. It means that the doctor considers this medicine medically necessary, but the patient has to pay for it himself. For example, this prescription is for non-prescription medications called OTC funds „Over the counter „on the sales tax“). OTC drugs were removed in 2004 from the catalog of benefits of the statutory health insurance.

Thus, many patients thought that these agents are also limited in their effectiveness and the sale of such funds broke. And this is where the criticism of many observers comes in, who see in the Green Recipe only an accelerator for the pharmacy visit and a possible turn to an increased medicine medicine. In naturopathy you are skeptical about the color and the name of the form. By the word „green“ could it possibly come to a confusion on the part of the patient, my observer. The word could give the impression that the funds in the Green Recipe are exclusively naturopathic remedies.

Proponents refer to the numbers and see the initiative as a success: allegedly every fifth non-prescription funds to stand on a green recipe. Around 70 percent of family doctors would now issue green prescriptions. At the forefront are preparations for colds. In 2009, there are about 10 percent more issued green recipes than in 2008. Nevertheless, the BAH left the initiative at the end of 2009. For this purpose, the project will now be continued by about 30 manufacturers of OTC funds. (Thorsten Fischer, Naturopath Osteopathy, 09.03.2010)