Romanian Health Insurance House short of funds for drug reimbursement

2010-03-09

According to Dan Zaharescu, the director of the Romanian Agency of International Producers of Medicines (ARPIM), the Romanian Health Insurance House (CNAS) has no money for drug reimbursement in 2010 and available funds will be sufficient to cover the 2009 debts only.
According to Zaharescu, the CNAS allocated €500m (approximately RON 2bn) for drug reimbursement in 2010, a sum similar to the RON 2.8bn (€681m) owed by the CNAS in 2009 to pharmacies and hospitals, for reimbursed drugs. The debt was a result of the significant reduction in the amount of social security contributions collected by the CNAS caused by the economic crisis in Romania.
To make matters worse, according to Dumitru Costin, a member of the CNAS management board, during the first two months of 2010 CNAS collected 28% less in contributions than it had expected and is able to provide only some of the urgently needed funds to hospitals and drug suppliers.
The CNAS management board has called upon the Romanian government to solve the problem of the CNAS budget deficit but it also thinks that it is necessary to reform the Romanian social security system.