the honest position is that eu reimbursement is a moving target and nothing said in here stays true for a year
#eu 2026-05-22
Friday53 messages12 participantstimes are UTC
Highlights from this day
- nordic_price_nils — i was wrong about the cross border prescription rules and a pharmacist corrected me in person, which was humbling 21:44
- madrid_mg — german pharmacies will order in what they do not stock. mine took three working days when i asked in 2024, from memory 22:05
- fasting_insulin — is the price the same across pharmacies in a country or does it vary a lot 22:42
how far ahead do people order given transit inside the eu
12 days inside the eu
what happens if a parcel gets picked up entering the eu
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is vat charged on a parcel coming into the eu and how much are we talking
no local insurance means the pharmacy price, full stop, in every country a member has reported from
the language thing improved a lot when i stopped using idioms, and that was the actual fix, take that with a pinch of salt
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write simple english
three working days
parcels entering the eu get assessed at the first point of entry rather than at your own border, which caught me out badly
the language barrier with support is real. i write in short plain english and it works better than good english does
ema approval is a licence, not a payment decision. every member state decides reimbursement separately and they do not agree with each other
any figure in this channel should be read as the month somebody typed it, not as the price today
cross border in theory
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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 price for the same dose in two eu countries differed by about forty percent in the one careful comparison i have seen in here
that is the thing people get wrong constantly. approved and paid for are two completely different processes in the eu
*Medutest not the other one
my last customs bill was about twenty two percent of declared value plus a fixed handling charge that hurt more than the tax did
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crossing a border to buy it happens and people are quiet about it, which tells you how comfortable they are with it
i was wrong about the cross border prescription rules and a pharmacist corrected me in person, which was humbling
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a member reported reimbursement under a national scheme for diabetes and flatly not for weight, and that was the pattern across several countries
nobody here can tell you what is legal in your country and the mods stop that conversation early
a swedish member put their monthly cost at roughly double what a polish member was paying, as of last year
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, ask me again in a month
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ok so 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
has anyone crossed a border specifically to buy it
nordic prices look brutal, is that real or is that just what gets reported
a swedish member put their monthly cost at roughly double what a polish member was paying, as of last year, for what its worth
german pharmacies will order in what they do not stock. mine took three working days when i asked in 2024, from memory
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ok so i had one pharmacy in another eu country refuse a foreign prescription and one accept it, same month, same paperwork
is it reimbursed anywhere in the eu or is it private everywhere
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diabetes yes weight no
poland came out cheapest of the four countries members compared about eighteen months ago
approval isnt reimbursement
translate your message and send both versions. that got me answers when english alone had not
handling fee is worse than vat
varies by pharmacy
slightly off topic but poland pricing, has anyone compared it against germany
ema approval means licensed but not that anyone pays for it, is that the right way round
i order about six weeks ahead because a customs delay inside the eu still cost me 8 days once
a member in spain said their pharmacy price was lower than germany when they compared in 2024, and i cannot verify that, still working it out
is the price the same across pharmacies in a country or does it vary a lot
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how does a pharmacy handle it if you have no local insurance at all
sorry to jump in what does privat versus kassenrezept mean in money terms
i keep a note of what i paid each month because the number moves and my memory of it does not
prices moved since
send both languages
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, i have it written down somewhere
can you legally buy in one eu country and take it to another
the language barrier with support is real. i write in short plain english and it works better than good english does
update on the earlier thing diabetes yes weight no
member reported
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