[Discussion] the Apotheke advice in here is 2 years out of date
the Apotheke advice in here is 2 years out of date, which sounds obvious until you try to state the evidence for it.
Since the title puts numbers in the shop window: 2 years.
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.
Happy to answer the boring questions. Those are usually the ones worth asking.
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.
pack sizes differ, so per-month comparisons need care
What does the local patient information leaflet say?
the same product has different names and pack sizes across the union
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.
Push back: comparing headline prices across countries without normalising pack size is comparing two different quantities.
Cosigning on cross-border prescriptions. The rules exist and they are narrower than the summaries suggest.
Apotheke pricing and pharmacy pricing elsewhere are different systems
What pack size is that price for?
Agreed — authorisation is European, reimbursement is national, and almost every confused thread here misses that split.
The translation cost of dealing with a foreign pharmacy was the thing I had not budgeted for.
the reimbursement criteria are published in most member states
- 1Push back: comparing headline prices across countries without normalising…6 comments in this branch · started by u/nl_verzekering