The state may fully compensate the cost of medications or medical devices for residents in emergency or exceptional cases, provided a joint medical council of Latvia’s three university hospitals has approved it, according to amendments proposed by the Ministry of Health to the “Procedure for Reimbursement of Expenses for Outpatient Medicines and Medical Devices.”
The ministry proposes allocating one million euro from the state budget reserved for drug reimbursement to fund this initiative.
These would be cases where a patient urgently requires life-saving medication that is currently not covered or only partially covered by the state.
At the same time, compensation would be limited to a maximum of 12 months of treatment.
According to the ministry, this new initiative would increase the state’s ability to support access to medications in urgent situations.
The amendments also aim to provide state-funded glucose monitoring systems for certain groups of patients. These systems would be made available to: women with type 1 or type 2 diabetes who receive insulin therapy during pregnancy and up to 70 days postpartum, patients who have undergone organ transplants, patients who have had a pancreatic resection.
The Ministry of Health notes that continuous glucose monitoring systems help reduce hospitalization risks, improve patients’ quality of life, and make everyday diabetes management easier.
Additionally, the burden on pharmaceutical company representatives would be reduced in certain cases when submitting requests to the National Health Service (NVD) to review reimbursement conditions. Specifically, the applicant would not need to submit an opinion from the State Agency of Medicines in some cases.
The draft amendments are open for public consultation until the 4th of April.