Health insurance drug prices are slashed every year! Falling into the "Cost Down" thinking trap? Doctors warn: The consequences are not just the lack of medicines
Pharmacies and hospitals are complaining about the shortage of medicines, and the National Health Insurance has reduced the prices of 5,000 medicines by 8.1 billion.
Taiwan’s national health insurance is internationally renowned, but the public is faced with the dilemma of worrying that drug prices continue to drop, leading to a shortage of available drugs, and even doctors can only prescribe cheap generic drugs?
Since February this year, the issue of “drug shortage” in pharmacies and hospitals has attracted social attention. Medical staff were interviewed and claimed that the reduction of drugs this year would be as high as 15 billion. Some drugs in community pharmacies have even been out of supply for as long as a year. as long as. A well-known pulmonologist pointed out in a Facebook post that even the life-saving drug “Cisatracurium” for white lung is in short supply.
The National Health Insurance Administration issued a document on March 1 stating that a review of drug prices that had not been adjusted in the past two years had deleted a total of 8.18 billion yuan in drug prices and reduced the prices of 5,500 drugs. The National Health Insurance Administration also pointed out that this year’s adjustment project has been the smallest in the ten years since the implementation of the “Drug Expenditure Target System” (DET) in 2013. It effectively controls the overall drug expenditure under the total budget and safeguards the pockets of Taiwanese people. In addition, In addition, incentives will also be discussed to encourage Taiwanese pharmaceutical companies to produce generic drugs to ensure that people are safe from medication.
In the age of inflation, costs are rising, but drug prices and medical examination fees are falling.
“In an era when the cost of all raw materials is rising, only two things are constantly being reduced, one is the cost of medicine, and the other is the doctor’s consultation fee (health insurance point value)!” A chief physician at Northern Medical Center was interviewed by “healthorn” He said that although the total amount of health insurance is increasing year by year, the introduction of various new drugs and medical materials has also led to the continuous reduction of drug expenses and physician consultation fees. In order to cope with cost control, the health insurance review mechanism is more inclined to drive doctors to prescribe relatively cheap drugs with the same effect, so as to reduce the use of high-priced foreign imported drugs as much as possible.
The chief physician gave an example. In the past, a drug for treating gastric ulcers cost about 5 yuan per pill when it was introduced overseas. In less than a few years, the health insurance price has been reduced to 6 yuan per pill. It directly affects the willingness of foreign pharmaceutical companies to enter the Taiwan market. National health insurance requires open and transparent prices. With constant adjustments to drug prices, pharmaceutical companies not only have normal profits affected, but drug pricing in other countries is also easily anchored, leading many pharmaceutical companies to choose to withdraw from the Taiwan market.
“Maybe some people think that if the dosage of the drug is not large, it doesn’t matter if there is no drug available in Taiwan. However, in the past, an antibiotic drug was withdrawn from Taiwan because of constant price cuts. Later, when patients needed the drug, all of Taiwan had no drug. Medicines can be prescribed, but health insurance has to go back to importing medicines, which of course is more expensive and uneconomical!”
Cutting drug prices falls into the Cost Down mentality and cannot guarantee the quality of medical care for the people.
To protect the quality of medical care and people’s rights to use medicines, is the only way to go “Cost Down” feasible? The chief physician said that the annual reduction in drug prices and examination fees is to “reduce costs.” The annual reduction in drug prices not only forces some pharmaceutical companies to withdraw from Taiwan, but also leaves clinicians with extremely cheap drugs. It can be prescribed, and whether the therapeutic effect or drug potency can really compare with the original drug is still a matter of concern.
“Why are the pricing of the same product so different? What is the key to the cost difference? Are the relatively cheap drug manufacturing processes and quality guaranteed? These cannot be answered by the “Cost Down” thinking that only looks at numbers, let alone what we are talking about It’s a ‘life-saving’ drug!”
The chief physician reminded that when more drug options do not enter the Taiwan market, no matter how good the medical environment is, doctors will be left “unarmed” without weapons when facing the corresponding diseases. When considering costs, if they can guarantee The relatively normal profit base of drugs also ensures the drug safety and medical quality of the people.
The concept of user payment must be implemented in medicine: health insurance should not be all-encompassing
“In the final analysis, the health insurance system should not be all-encompassing and everything must be paid. Taiwanese people should have the correct concept of user pays so that health insurance can continue to operate sustainably!”
Chief physicians believe that health insurance should serve as the backbone of basic health protection for Taiwanese people, with corresponding partial burden ratios set for different treatment items and graded medical care. Only in this way can we avoid the unreasonable situation of “the price of treating a cold is the same as treating cancer”. Policies such as encouraging Taiwanese pharmaceutical companies to manufacture generic drugs and introducing more low-priced biosimilar drugs must also be considered from the perspective of longer-term medical quality and monitoring data to truly ensure patients’ rights to medication.
“Whether it is the reduction of drug prices, the deletion of health insurance benefits, or the continuous reduction of physician consultation fee points, we cannot only look at the impact in the immediate one or two years, in order to be truly conducive to the continued operation of health insurance and allow Taiwanese people to obtain The long-term goal of proper medical care!”
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