Co-payments can change in the month

Co-payments may change during the current month

20/10/2014

As the German Pharmacists Association (DAV) announced in a press release, the co-payments for prescription drugs may change during a current month. The cut-off dates for such changes are the first of the month and the fifteenth month. In addition to the purely pharmaceutical information, the pharmacists also receive economic and contractual facts on these dates. The pharmacist can then use his software to recognize whether the drug requires an additional payment and how high it is for a medically prescribed drug. Each patient can look under "aponet.de", whether the appropriate preparation is exempt from the additional payment.

The amount of co-payments can vary. It can e.g. The maximum amount of reimbursement, resulting in a change in the exemption limit, and manufacturers may raise or lower their In addition, there are always rebate contracts of individual health insurance companies, which then decide independently whether they allow their insured to benefit from a partial or even complete copayment. If the prescription drugs, patients have to pay 10 percent of the price, but at least 5 euros and at most 10 euros, with the amount of the additional payment according to DAV is always linked to the actual cost of the drugs.

The average copayment amount is currently 2.60 euros, which is due to the fact that also non-cash medicines are included in the statistics. Basically, all pharmacies are required to collect the additional payment and forward it to the health insurance companies. Recently, in 2013 two billion euros in patient payments have come together, a sum that marks a new record for the statutory health insurance (SHI), according to the DAV. (Jp)

Picture: Bernd Kasper