Minister of health, Jens Spahn wants to move away from the promised prohibition of mail order sales of prescription drugs and the pharmacist in return for additional services to significantly better reward. For night and emergency services you should get in the future, with 240 million euros in the year, twice as much paid as in the past. Specifically, one pharmacy per full emergency services would then expect about 550 euros. For additional services, for example in terms of health prevention, presented Spahn you a further 240 million. And for the costly provision of drugs could you should receive also 15 million euros on top of it.
market share should be limited to five percent
at the same time the CDU politician offered the pharmacists taking action against a proliferation of Internet competition. The mail order prescription Drug must remain the exception and should not become the rule, said Spahn. Therefore, he wanted to limit the market share of this trade to five percent. And the granting of bonuses, the Minister will draw the mail-order pharmacies also limits. Such discounts will henceforth be allowed to 2.50 euros per pack not to exceed.
Spahn said on the sidelines of a meeting of the members of the Federal Union of German associations of Pharmacists (ABDA) in Berlin, where he presented his plans. He feels committed to the objective of the comprehensive supply of medicines to ensure and strengthen the pharmacy on site, the Minister said. However, the shipping trade of drugs “for certain patients in certain situations, its importance”. And to ban him as of his predecessor Hermann Gröhe promised in the coalition agreement set out, the mountains legal and political risks. It is “imponderable” whether or not you could prevail in the end.
no more “wild West methods”
must end with the “wild West” of the Internet retailers, said Spahn. The provided bonuses limit is “quite possible” and from the European case-law is also derived. The market should increase as a share of the shipping trade over the targeted five per cent, one could restrict the bonus opportunities of the provider.
The pharmacist were for the first satisfied. It was important to agree on a “target image,” said the Association’s President, Friedemann Schmidt. The shipping trade could make a “supplemental contribution” to the drug supply, but had to remain the exception. If it manages to limit the market share to a “manageable level”, that was all right. You will discuss the proposals internally and to a further General meeting in mid-January position. Also Spahn stressed that his key points were “just a Start”. Now is the time to bring the coalition factions into the boat. His goal was that the Bundestag could be the end of January, legislatively active.
opposition from the Union group
That the compromise is still bagged in no way shows a first reaction in the Union group. He think it is good that Spahn had made proposals for the strengthening of the pharmacies on the spot, said the CDU-health politician Alexander Krauß. “The shipping trade is not a ban, however.” The coalition agreement keep its validity, and that this prohibition was written down, insisted Krauß. With the Ministry, there is therefore “considerable discussion”.
The coalition partners, however, showed himself to be satisfied. “We welcome the fact that the shipping trade ban is off the table,” said the SPD-health expert Karl Lauterbach, the “New osnabrück newspaper”. “In a time in which the Online trade in medicines by the population desired and accepted, would not be a stop time according to have been.” The change of course was “good news for all patients who are dependent on the supply of shipping drugs.” This applies in particular for the seriously ill in need of special medication.
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However, Lauterbach warned against too much in the fees. “The health Minister should beware of the location of pharmacies, the approval of the shipping trade, to buy and to pay millions of euros as a dowry on the table,” he said.
