[Country] DE — Apotheke pricing, Rezept process, what off-label actually costs
DE — Apotheke pricing, Rezept process, what off-label actually costs, which sounds obvious until you try to state the evidence for it.
Kept the prescription and the receipt for a claim, purely because a thread here told me to. Both were requested.
The structure that makes this board make sense, once.
Marketing authorisation for these products is granted centrally, which is why the same product exists across the union. Everything after that — whether it is reimbursed, on what criteria, at what price, in what pack size, dispensed under what margin rules — is decided nationally.
So "is it covered" has twenty-seven answers, "what does it cost" has twenty-seven answers plus within-country variation, and only "is it authorised" has one. Almost every argument on this board is two people answering different questions from different countries, both correctly.
Asked in my own language at a local pharmacy and got a clearer answer in five minutes than a fortnight of forum reading.
Screenshot none of this. Read the whole thread, including the parts where I am told I am wrong.
best — the order this archive was captured in
Compared prices across two neighbouring countries and found the difference was mostly pack size once I normalised it.
Assumed a prescription would be honoured across the border. It was not, and the rules are clear once you actually read them.
Pharmacy margins and dispensing fees are regulated nationally, which explains price differences that otherwise look arbitrary.
Same. Naming the country in the first line would fix most of the bad advice on this board.
A supply notice in one member state made the front page here and had no effect at all where I am.
Nothing here is medical or legal advice, and eligibility questions have national answers that a pharmacist where you live can give you in minutes.
On cross-border prescriptions, since the assumption behind half these threads is wrong.
There are EU rules on the recognition of prescriptions issued in another member state, and they are conditional: the prescription has to meet requirements about its form and content, certain categories are excluded, and pharmacies retain discretion in practice.
The result is that "my prescription will be accepted anywhere in the EU" is not a safe assumption, and members here have discovered it at a counter in another country. If it matters for a trip, check before you travel with the pharmacy and with somebody qualified where you are. Nothing on this board is advice about that, and the rules are national in their application whatever the framework says.
On cross-border prescriptions, since the assumption behind half these threads is wrong.
Adding the practical step — read your own country’s published criteria. They exist and they are definitive.
Adding the practical step — read your own country’s published criteria.
Disagreeing with this bit: that criterion belongs to one member state and is being quoted as general.
the EMA authorises, member states decide who pays
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EU-wide advice is almost always wrong somewhere
Read the published reimbursement criteria where I live rather than asking. Took twenty minutes and answered everything.
Agreed that pharmacy margin regulation explains a lot of the price differences people find mysterious.
That shortage notice was national and does not apply where the question is coming from.
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.
Pack sizes and presentations differ between member states, so a headline price is not comparable until it is normalised to a common quantity.
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.
- 1On cross-border prescriptions, since the assumption behind half these…9 comments in this branch · started by u/eu_apotheke_a