SFEE appeals to the Council of State for the criteria of the reimbursement list

Press Release

Halandri, April 11, 2011

SFEE announces the submission before the Council of State of an application for the annulment of the Joint Ministerial Decree (JMD), which determines the criteria for the establishment of the reimbursement list.

This action was considered necessary for three main reasons given that the aforementioned Ministerial Decree (no. DYG3a/oik.2466/2010):

1.    Is not within the context of legislative authorization, since it reduces the prices of medicinal products even further, violating L.D. 96/73 as amended and in force

2.    Establishes a single cluster both for original and essentially similar medicinal products, while the enabling law clearly distinguishes the two categories

3.    Infringes and violates the European Directive 89/105, which foresees that every decision excluding a medicinal product covered by the social security system from the reimbursement list must be justified on the basis of objective and verifiable criteria.

SFEE underlines that the criteria established by the Ministerial Decree are vague, objective, they trigger unfair competition, promote intransparency and shape a hostile environment.

Therefore the application for annulment before the Council of State was considered necessary.

We note that SFEE has submitted to the Government specific proposals, that ensure access of patients to all medicines and guarantee the savings the Government is expecting to achieve for the social insurance funds. The only way to contain expenditure is to immediately proceed to the completion of the IT infrastructure of the health system, e-prescribing and electronic patient record and to implement immediately the diagnostic and therapeutic protocols.

SFEE stresses once again that this Ministerial Decree is inapplicable in practice, lacks objectivity and transparency, raises inequalities and causes serious legal problems.

Furthermore, we are confident that it will cause tremendous disruption, an environment of therapeutic insecurity, since it will cause for key irreplaceable treatments to withdraw and will also deter the release of new important innovative medicinal products in Greece.