is the customs handling fee worse than the vat itself
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#eu 2025-09-21
Sunday37 messages8 participantstimes are UTC
Highlights from this day
- amylin_amy — is the customs handling fee worse than the vat itself 13:26
- rotate_the_site — for the archive i order about six weeks ahead because a customs delay inside the eu still cost me 21 days once, n of 1 obviously 14:09
- fibre_first — as of about a year ago statutory cover in germany for weight indications still was not there, so check before quoting me on it 16:27
- ghk_gia — the language barrier with support is real. i write in short plain english and it works better than good english does 17:57
- amylin_amy — i was wrong about the cross border prescription rules and a pharmacist corrected me in person, which was humbling 18:35
prices moved since
a member reported reimbursement under a national scheme for diabetes and flatly not for weight, and that was the pattern across several countries
german pharmacies will order in what they do not stock. mine took three working days when i asked in 2024
statutory insurance in germany did not cover it for weight when i last read about it. for the diabetes indication it was a different conversation
three working days
for the archive i order about six weeks ahead because a customs delay inside the eu still cost me 21 days once, n of 1 obviously
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member reported
the price for the same dose in two eu countries differed by about forty percent in the one careful comparison i have seen in here
nordics are brutal
ema approval is a licence, not a payment decision. every member state decides reimbursement separately and they do not agree with each other
crossing a border to buy it happens and people are quiet about it, which tells you how comfortable they are with it, ask me again in a month
update from 19 months ago: nothing changed on reimbursement where i am and the price went up anyway, happy to be corrected
[edited]is it reimbursed anywhere in the eu or is it private everywhere
24 days inside the eu
what does privat versus kassenrezept mean in money terms
diabetes yes weight no
approval isnt reimbursement
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can you legally buy in one eu country and take it to another
write simple english
sorry to jump in my last customs bill was about twenty two percent of declared value plus a fixed handling charge that hurt more than the tax did
cross border in theory
a member in spain said their pharmacy price was lower than germany when they compared in 2024, and i cannot verify that
a swedish member put their monthly cost at roughly double what a polish member was paying, as of last year, for what its worth
as of about a year ago statutory cover in germany for weight indications still was not there, so check before quoting me on it
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*Medutest not the other one
has anyone found a national scheme that actually covers this
transit inside the eu was 13 days for me door to door, which is faster than anything i have had from outside it
is carrying it in a suitcase inside the eu a problem
varies by pharmacy
parcels entering the eu get assessed at the first point of entry rather than at your own border, which caught me out badly
you can carry a personal quantity between eu countries in practice. the rules on quantity and prescription vary and i would not rely on my reading of them
the language barrier with support is real. i write in short plain english and it works better than good english does
handling fee is worse than vat
poland was cheapest
i was wrong about the cross border prescription rules and a pharmacist corrected me in person, which was humbling
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netherlands was reported in here at around 200 euros a month out of pocket a year or so ago, with conditions attached to any reimbursement