PRESCRIPTION CHANGES IN SPAIN

Letters

Contributor / 2012-07-20 22:56:03

Dear Sirs,

I have read articles in various papers recently on the new prescription charges and the apparent confusion over the amounts to be paid. I'm afraid it is hardly surprising that there is confusion when the info that is being printed is incorrect.

Several papers have reported that the charges are capped at a MINIMUM of €8.00 per month, which implies that this is the LEAST amount anyone will have to pay!!. This is totally WRONG.

The correct terminology is a MAXIMUM cap of €8.00 per month. Therefore no one will have to pay more than €8.00 per month, regardless of how many prescriptions they may have to fill per month.

The most that they will have to pay per medicine is 10% of the medicine cost per month, up to a maximum of €8.00 per month. E.g If the medicine costs €25.00, the amount to be paid = €2.50 (10%) or if the Medicine costs €95.00 or €105.00 then the amount to be paid is €8.00 (maximum). If a patient has more than 1 prescription to purchase each month and the individual costs add up to more than €8.00 in total, then they will be able to get a refund of the difference.

Newly issued prescriptions have the medicine cost and the amount to be paid printed on them so everyone will know, before they go to the Farmacia, exactly how much they are going to have to pay.

The foregoing relates to Pensioners and their dependants where their total annual income is less than €18000. For higher earners, non-pensioners, etc., there is a similar but more expensive rating.

Hope this helps to reduce the confusion.

Barry Weston