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Minister: Price regulation in health care to save CZK 6 billion

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Prague, July 7 (CTK) – The planned regulation of prices of health care items will save four to six billion crowns annually, Health Minister Svatopluk Nemecek (Social Democrats, CSSD) said Tuesday, adding that the spending in 2013 amounted to almost 28 billion crowns.

The health care items include dressings, syringes, incontinence aids, glucommeters, wheelchairs, eye lenses, X-rays, CTs and the Gama Knife.

He said he is also preparing measures to prevent the export of cheap medicines so that there is enough of them for Czech patients.

In 2013, medicines for 3.6 billion crowns were exported.

Nemecek said the measures will save both patients and health insurers’ money.

He said Czech medicines are among the cheapest in the EU and that is why they are often re-exported.

Within a short time, the Health Ministry had to three times reduce the export of medicines that were lacking on the Czech market, Nemecek said.

He said the valid legislation only makes it possible to react to medicines shortages. The law does not embed sanctions for the firms behind the huge medicines exports.

“Under the new system, the ministry in cooperation with the State Institute for Drug Control (SUKL) will draw a list of ‘risk’ curative substances, or those whose shortage can threaten the health or lives of patients and that were already re-exported in the past,” Nemecek said.

He said the firms that would want to export a listed medicine will have to apply for consent 30 days ahead. In case of breach of the provision, they would be fined up to 20 million crowns or be banned from operation for two years.

Unlike medicines, the prices and coverage by health insurers is set by the SUKL, while the price and coverage of health care items depend on agreement between the insurers and firms.

As a result, they can be much more expensive than abroad, which is true of the glucometer, for instance. It costs 40 percent more in the Czech Republic than in Germany.

The largest health insurance company, VZP, pays annually 1.5 billion crowns for incontinence aids, which equals the spending on all cancer patients’ complete radiation.

Under the prepared legislation, the prices and coverage by health insurers are to be set by SUKL.

The coverage by health insurers and the prices are to be set based on the lowest reference level in EU countries. Minimally once in five years, the prices and coverage would be revised and health insurance companies could negotiate with producers on further discounts.

Nemecek wants to submit the draft amendment on medicines to the government in August, the draft amendment on health care items by September.

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