Among other measures adopted, the Ministry of Health temporarily exempts from the obligation of "stamping the prescription visa seal of those medicines subject to singular reserves consisting of the imposition of a visa" prior to their pharmaceutical dispensation.
Likewise, in attention to the mutualists that are not of public option, the Ministerial Order empowers each mutual society to guarantee access to treatments with those medicines without a coupon-seal and that are dispensed in the pharmacy services of the private concerted hospitals, with charge to the budget of each agency.
The mutualists who were obliged to stamp the prescriptions in the MUFACE offices to obtain their medications, because they need authorization, will be able to purchase their prescription medications directly from the pharmacy without having to make this trip, due to the state of alarm throughout the national territory declared by the Government on March 14 (Royal Decree 463/2020, link to consolidated text), in the face of the health emergency caused by COVID-19.
The measure is of special relevance since, in 2019 alone, a total of 952,000 drugs were prescribed with a visa, for an amount of 67.28 million euros.
Medicines and products with visa
Among the drugs with the highest number of prescriptions that require a visa are antithromes (anticoagulants), with 330.00 containers; urine incontinence pads (150,000) and dietary therapy products (89,000). Followed by dementia drugs (70,000, antidiabetics (60,000) and immunosuppressive drugs – for the prevention of transplant rejection and treatment of autoimmune diseases – with some 56,000 containers.
The measures approved by the Government will last until the end of the state of alarm and its possible extensions.