three years of reimbursement threads, summarised so you do not have to read them
Something I keep coming back to: three years of reimbursement threads, summarised so you do not have to read them.
Pack sizes and presentations differ between member states, so a headline price is not comparable until it is normalised to a common quantity.
Assumed a prescription would be honoured across the border. It was not, and the rules are clear once you actually read them.
Published reimbursement criteria exist in most member states and are usually available in the national language. They are the authoritative answer to eligibility questions that this board can only guess at.
If somebody has the same thing measured a different way, post it next to mine and we will see whether they agree.
best — the order this archive was captured in
How to compare prices across borders without misleading yourself.
Normalise the pack size first. Presentations differ between member states and a headline figure for one pack is not comparable to another. Then separate reimbursed from private prices, which are set by entirely different mechanisms. Then note the dispensing fee structure, which is nationally regulated.
When members here have done all three, the interesting finding has consistently been that variation between pharmacies within a country is often as large as the variation between countries — which makes the cross-border shopping most of these threads are really about far less attractive than it looks.
Careful, that guidance is from a different country and this thread is asking about somewhere else entirely.
Have you read the published reimbursement criteria where you are?
keep the prescription and the receipt, both matter for claims
Country added to the title — the answers differ across the union and the thread is unusable without it.
Country added to the title — the answers differ across the union and the thread is unusable without it.
Agreed — and normalising pack size before comparing prices is the fix for half these threads.
Correction: that is the authorisation position, and the question was about reimbursement. Different bodies, different answers.
I would not treat one pharmacy’s quote as a national price. The variation within a country is often larger than between them.
Read the published reimbursement criteria where I live rather than asking. Took twenty minutes and answered everything.
Agreed — authorisation is European, reimbursement is national, and almost every confused thread here misses that split.
Small fix — those two prices are for different pack sizes, which accounts for most of the gap.
That shortage notice was national and does not apply where the question is coming from.
What pack size is that price for?
reimbursement is national, not European, and that is the whole board
reimbursement is national, not European, and that is the whole board
aa_analysis_andy is right about cross-border recognition being narrower than the summaries suggest.
Supply notices are issued nationally. A notice in one member state does not imply availability problems in another, even for the same product.
a prescription from one member state is not automatically valid in another
EU-wide advice is almost always wrong somewhere
Yes. Pack sizes differ enough that per-month price comparisons across borders need to be normalised before they mean anything.
Not convinced — cross-border prescription recognition is narrower than you are describing and the exceptions matter.
Push back: comparing headline prices across countries without normalising pack size is comparing two different quantities.
That is an authorisation question and you have answered a reimbursement one. They are decided by different bodies.
Cross-border prescription recognition exists under EU rules but is conditional and narrower than commonly assumed, with requirements about the prescription’s form and content.
pack sizes differ, so per-month comparisons need care
Marketing authorisation is granted centrally for these products; reimbursement, pricing and prescribing criteria are national competences. Those are decided by different bodies with different processes.
the language barrier is a real cost and nobody budgets for it
the same product has different names and pack sizes across the union
pharmacy margins are regulated differently in each country
say which country or the thread is useless
- 1reimbursement is national, not European, and that is the whole board9 comments in this branch · started by u/aa_analysis_andy
- 2pack sizes differ, so per-month comparisons need care6 comments in this branch · started by u/rt_shift_reggie