The region of Lombardy cuts the prescription charge by half

The prescription charge in Lombardy will be halved from the current €30 to a maximum of €15. During the first meeting in the regional council, the Health Services Councillor Giulio Gallera, who has been reconfirmed in this position, has announced the reduction of the costs for specialist examinations. “In December 2016, the Central Government rejected our resolution and made us waste a year. However, fortunately, now a million and a half of Lombard citizens can benefit from a 50% reduction of the prescription charge, that will be reduced from a maximum of €30 to a maximum of €15.”

This resolution must now be assessed by the council committee in charge, and will become effective from the fifteenth working day after the approval.

 

“Thanks to this resolution, the Region of Lombardy will invest €90 million to guarantee additional exemptions to Lombard citizens, while waiting for the occasion to eliminate the prescription charge completely,” Councillor Gallera has added.

 

An average of €7.80 against €10 of the national average. The maximum cost of the prescription charge will then be of €36 (national prescription charge) plus €15 (regional prescription charge) = €51, and no more the €66 (36+30) people who needed a chest CAT or a magnetic resonance to the backbone have had to pay until now. Also, a colonoscopy, which today has a cost of €36 for the national prescription charge and €22.80 for the regional prescription charge (€58.80), will cost €51 (36 +15). In this way, the average of the maximum cost of the regional prescription charge will be €7.80 instead of €10 of the national one.

 

ADDITIONAL EXEMPTIONS – The €20 million for the reduction of the regional prescription charge are to be added to the €70 million that the Region of Lombardy has already invested to guarantee additional exemptions, beyond the national ones. These include: users up to 14 years old (42 million); adults in particular conditions of difficulty, unemployed or receiving redundancy payments (22 million) ;from 2015, citizens having an annual fiscal household income which is not higher than €18,000, and their dependent relatives (6 million); this exemption has been granted to about 150,000 people,” Gallera has added.

 

54% OF THE RECIPIENTS ARE EXEMPTED – The Councillor has also stated that about 4 million and one-hundred thousand  users in Lombardy, on a total of 7 million and a half of people, do not pay the prescription charge. “These users benefit from 70% of the specialist prescriptions that are guaranteed (27 million) and 74% of the economic value of the performances that are given go them.”

 

The list of all the exemptions, or those applied for related performances (for example those with a crippling disease or due to an accident) can be seen in the following website:

http://www.regione.lombardia.it/wps/wcm/connect/64762a83-002f447aa15183e309a2267f/tabella+esenzioni+specialistica+ambulatoriale+18012018.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=64762a83-002f-447a-a151-83e309a2267f