Where will the money come from to include flosins in the list of free drugs for seniors? We asked Dr. Jaroslaw Frąckowiak, president of PEX PharmaSequence, about this.
There's money for flozins for seniors
Published June 30, 2023 14:34
The topic of flosins and their place on the 75+ reimbursement list, or S list (seniors), is an interesting one. Particularly if we take into account that phlazines are talked about as a breakthrough therapy. And at the moment, senior patients have to pay for these drugs.
It looks like the total amount of money spent annually by seniors on vlazines is roughly 67 million. Of this amount, 21.5 million are subsidies for vlazines available with a 30 percent payment. The rest are full-pay drugs.
There are about 150,000 seniors 75+ taking phlozines. So this is a sizable group. If the entry of flosins into the S-list applied only to patients who take them on a reimbursable basis, we are talking about almost 22 million zlotys that the state budget would have to subsidize for this purpose. If the idea of subsidizing the 65+ group as part of a major amendment to the reimbursement law were to pass, one would have to reckon that this cost of introducing flozins would be greater by a factor of 4 or 5, that is, between 80 and 100 million zlotys.
Currently, the state budget spends about 840 million zlotys on the 75+ list. And if we look at the statistics for 2022 and 2021, these budgets were unrealized, that is, more was planned than spent (roughly 70 o million zlotys). So if flozins were added to the 75+ list then this cost would be covered by the planned but unspent funds.
Is it worth it? I'm not a doctor and I won't get into a substantive discussion. But I can say that the money for this is there and that seniors have a problem paying for drugs. It's not just about flosines, but the whole basket. Senior patients are multi-disease and happen to miss prescriptions or have trouble paying for their therapies. The ideal solution would be to finance (for the largest possible group) all drugs that are already on the reimbursement list (I'm not talking about chemotherapy and innovative drugs outside the reimbursement list). The cost of such a procedure with the addition of seniors 65+ is an additional about one and a half billion zlotys. Can we afford it? Looking at other expenses, I think this could be deeply considered and such a program could be implemented.
