Co-payments for drugs have risen again

Pharmaceutical co-payments for cash-patients increase again. Statutory health insurance companies have to pay more and more for medicines

10.02.2011

Cash patients always have to pay higher sums for medicines out of their own pocket. According to the German Pharmacists' Association, 1.8 billion euros had to be paid for by statutory health insurance in the past year. The sum, the funds to be raised by the cash-desk patients for needed medicines, rose in 2010 by around 71 million (four percent) to 1.8 billion euros. The long-term trend of rising co-payments continued in the past year, according to the announcement of the German Pharmacists Association on Thursday in Berlin

Cash patients pay € 2.40 per drug
According to the pharmacist association, on average every patient had to pay € 2.40 per pack of purchased medicines. However, here are the freed from co-payments drugs included. In general, statutory insured persons for prescription medicines have to pay ten per cent of the price out of their own pocket, with at least five and no more than ten euros being due. The funds, however, determine a fixed amount that they are prepared to reimburse for the remedies. If this is well below the actual price (by 30 percent), the corresponding drugs are exempted from additional payment by the patients. In addition, cash-on-demand patients can apply for exemption from co-payments if they spend more than two percent of the annual gross salary (more than one percent for the chronically ill) on medicines.

Co-payments for medicines have been increasing for years
The sum of co-payments has continued to increase in recent years - from 1.626 billion euros in 2007, to 1.7474 billion euros in 2008, 1.696 billion euros in 2009 and 1.767 billion in 2010. It was for the higher burden of cash patients In the past year, the reduction of the fixed amounts as of September 1, 2010, was the main cause, as many medicines formerly exempted from additional payments have since become liable to pay-offs. For the patients one of the most tangible effects of the black and yellow health care reform. Although CDU, CSU and FDP actually wanted to achieve a higher price pressure for the manufacturers and in the end lower drug costs for all, the current figures of the pharmacy association reveal a different picture - the coalition pay again the insured. (Fp)

Read about co-payments & pharmaceuticals:
Medicines: Health insurance will pay more soon
Medicines: drug prices are rising

Picture: Andreas Morlok