Added to this figure is the 'savings' effect of generic-equivalent medicines (estimated at 60 million). The Board - reports a note - has given a mandate to the AIFA General Management to issue the relative provision by 15 July. The containment measures not only make up for the breach of the 2005 spending ceiling, but also contain 2006 spending.
In fact, “a further temporary reduction in the price of drugs, however dispensed or used by the NHS, from the current 4.4% to 5% is envisaged, confirming the exclusions already provided for in the previous provision of 30 December 2005. This reduction makes it possible to completely and the definitive way - AIFA specifies - the breakthrough of the pharmaceutical expenditure ceiling programmed for 2005, for the share of the 60% to be paid by private subjects".
The Board has also decided “a maneuver to revise the National Pharmaceutical Handbook (Pfn) which provides for a selective and temporary reduction in the price of medicines up to a maximum of 12% and until the part under its responsibility is recovered. This maneuver - explains the note - refers to medicines which in the first quarter of 2006 recorded an increase above the sector average, without there being a justified reason on an epidemiological level; and in any case this corresponds to a necessary rebalancing between expenditure and consumption”. “The selectivity of the Prontuary revision provision – reads the AIFA note – concerns 502 packs out of 4799 (equal to 10.5%) and refers to 98 companies out of the 374 operating on the national territory (26.4%).
