Slovak Health Ministry to change vaccination purchase rules again?

2012-01-16



Slovak Ministry of Health wants to change vaccination regulations introduced last month, according to which Slovak doctors need to purchase vaccines from pharmacies and store them to be reimbursed later by health insurance companies. The ministry proposes that doctors will be entitled to charge health insurance companies half of a pharmacy sales margin for a given vaccine, regardless of whether the vaccine has been purchased from a pharmacy or a wholesale distributor.
When the new regulations were introduced last month, in addition to complaining about not being able to put the money up front to pay for the vaccines, many doctors also said that the new system does not offer them any financial incentives for the hustle.
The Association of Private Doctors says that the proposed measure would improve the financial side of December regulation regarding the purchasing of vaccines by doctors, but does not solve excessive administrative burdens that the regulation imposes on doctors.
The Slovak Chamber of Pharmacists has already criticised the new solution, concerned about potential drops in pharmacy earnings.