i was wrong about the cross border prescription rules and a pharmacist corrected me in person, which was humbling
#eu 2026-04-27
Monday48 messages10 participantstimes are UTC
Highlights from this day
- snac_and_water — 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 19:20
- salt_bridge — nobody here can tell you what is legal in your country and the mods stop that conversation early 19:29
- LC_MS_Lena — pharmacy prices in germany were fairly uniform when i checked because of how they are regulated. in spain they varied much more 21:08
Archive lookup: LC_MS_Lena first appears in this channel on 2025-06-10.
the language thing improved a lot when i stopped using idioms, and that was the actual fix
my last customs bill was about twenty two percent of declared value plus a fixed handling charge that hurt more than the tax did
the cheapest eu route a member found was a local pharmacy with a local prescription, which is no help if you have neither
vat on imports from outside the eu applied from a very low threshold when i last imported, and the carrier handling fee was bigger than the vat
poland pricing, has anyone compared it against germany
as of about a year ago statutory cover in germany for weight indications still was not there, so check before quoting me on it
reported by members, own currency, not comparable directly
private clinic, UK 145 - 220
statutory, DE 10 co-pay
private script, DE 180 - 240
pharmacy, PL 95 - 140
pharmacy, SE 210 - 260approval isnt reimbursement
how are people managing when support only speaks one language and it isnt yours
ema approval is a licence, not a payment decision. every member state decides reimbursement separately and they do not agree with each other
varies by pharmacy
send both languages
transit inside the eu was 20 days for me door to door, which is faster than anything i have had from outside it
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how does a pharmacy handle it if you have no local insurance at all
[edited]the honest position is that eu reimbursement is a moving target and nothing said in here stays true for a year, n of 1 obviously
anyone had a german pharmacy order it in and how long did that take
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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
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nobody here can tell you what is legal in your country and the mods stop that conversation early
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that is the thing people get wrong constantly. approved and paid for are two completely different processes in the eu
anyone in sweden or denmark want to compare notes
any figure in this channel should be read as the month somebody typed it, not as the price today
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, ill dig out the number
ema approval means licensed but not that anyone pays for it, is that the right way round
i keep a note of what i paid each month because the number moves and my memory of it does not
no local insurance means the pharmacy price, full stop, in every country a member has reported from
poland was cheapest
a german member reported paying around 300 euros a month privately in 2024. one person, one dose, one pharmacy
check the date on that
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a prescription from one member state is meant to be recognised in another under the cross border rules. whether the pharmacist knows that is another matter
can you legally buy in one eu country and take it to another
what happens if a parcel gets picked up entering the eu
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snac_and_waterthe price for the same dose in two eu countries differed by about forty percent in the…
update from 19 months ago: nothing changed on reimbursement where i am and the price went up anyway
write simple english
that was 2024 pricing
update on the earlier thing in germany the split is privat versus kasse. a private prescription means you pay the pharmacy price yourself and when i checked last year that was a lot, happy to be corrected
10 days inside the eu
a member in spain said their pharmacy price was lower than germany when they compared in 2024, and i cannot verify that
handling fee is worse than vat
pharmacy prices in germany were fairly uniform when i checked because of how they are regulated. in spain they varied much more
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is the price the same across pharmacies in a country or does it vary a lot
the language barrier with support is real. i write in short plain english and it works better than good english does
nordic pricing genuinely was higher in every comparison i have seen here, and the incomes are higher too, which people forget
nordics are brutal
coming back after 25 months, has anything changed on reimbursement anywhere
diabetes yes weight no
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unrelated but i order about six weeks ahead because a customs delay inside the eu still cost me 26 days once