By Redaction the Money – Wednesday 2 January 2013
The Region collects, on behalf of the Local Health Authorities, reimbursements from pharmaceutical companies for 113.5 million euros punctually entered in the budget (2012 management) in the appropriate chapter for Health. The collection at the end of the year must be recorded in the so-called Pay-back chapter, under the heading "non-tax revenues" and is diverted to the repayment of the health debt and to the financing of health care expenditure, in particular in support of pharmaceutical expenditure.
The payback mechanism
The pay-back mechanism is envisaged by the 2007 State Finance Act and allows pharmaceutical companies to ask AIFA (Italian Medicines Agency) to suspend the 5 percent price reduction established by the law against the simultaneous payment, in cash, (pay-back) of the relative value on special current accounts identified by the Regions. The pay-back shelf mechanism was created to meet the need for greater flexibility in the pharmaceutical market, allowing on the one hand the disbursement of economic resources to the Regions in support of each one's pharmaceutical expenditure, and on the other the opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to make choices on the prices of their drugs, based on their own market intervention strategies.
