In view of the shortage of children’s medicines, the health insurance companies want to spend more money. The measure is temporary, they emphasize. Because the step is gnashing of teeth.
The health insurance companies have decided on measures to defuse the tense situation with children’s medicines such as fever syrup or suppositories. The so-called fixed amounts for certain drugs with the active ingredients ibuprofen and paracetamol and for antibiotics are to be suspended for three months from February 1, 2023, as the Central Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds (GKV) announced on Tuesday on request. The ARD capital studio had previously reported about it. The measure affects a total of 180 finished medicinal products, including ibuprofen juices, paracetamol suppositories and antibiotic suspensions.
According to the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices, the fixed price of a drug is the maximum amount that statutory health insurance companies will pay for it. “If the sales price is higher than the fixed amount, patients usually pay the difference to the fixed amount themselves or receive another – therapeutically equivalent – drug without additional payment.” In the case of children’s medication, according to the information, parents do not have to fear any additional costs, even if the health insurance companies now incur higher costs for this.
In December, Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) announced as a measure against the shortage that health insurance companies should pay more money for certain medicines in future, so that deliveries to Germany are more worthwhile for pharmaceutical companies. The health insurance companies are now saying that the planned measure creates the conditions for a further deterioration in the tight supply situation with children’s medicines to be counteracted in the short term. But it also says: “Allowing the pharmaceutical industry to raise prices in the short term is not a sustainable solution.”
Source: Stern
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