Almost 319 million lei were allocated in the first quarter for subsidized drugs. The amount is increasing by about 46 million compared to the same period last year. For 2019, 596 million lei were planned for subsidized drugs.

The National Health Insurance Company says in a press release that the number of prescriptions issued for subsidized drugs has also increased.

In the first six months of the year, over 3 million prescriptions were prescribed and covered, by almost 230,000 more than in the same period of 2018. This increase, authorities say, is due to the fact that since February some medicines are offered free of charge from the list of those partially compensated from the mandatory health insurance funds.

Of the total subsidized medicines, the largest share belongs to the medicines administered in the long-term treatment, in particular in the case of cardiovascular diseases (45%) and diabetes (19.7%).

The list of susidized medicines comprises 148 international generics. It can be consulted with the family doctor, in pharmacies, at NICM info-line 0 800 99999 or accessed on the NICM website.

A recent study has shown that doctors and patients have a lack of information on access to subsidized medicines and there are inconsistencies between the recommendations of medical specialists and family doctors when it comes to subscribing subsidized medicines to patients.