cross border in theory
#eu 2026-05-12
Tuesday46 messages10 participantstimes are UTC
Highlights from this day
- monoisotopic — anyone had a german pharmacy order it in and how long did that take 10:30
- karl_fischer — unrelated but translate your message and send both versions. that got me answers when english alone had not 11:45
- monoisotopic — a member in spain said their pharmacy price was lower than germany when they compared in 2024, and i cannot verify that 12:32
- monoisotopic — unrelated but 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 16:12
poland came out cheapest of the four countries members compared about eighteen months ago
a swedish member put their monthly cost at roughly double what a polish member was paying, as of last year
spain, is it pharmacy only and what does it come to
privat means you pay
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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
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 - 260anyone had a german pharmacy order it in and how long did that take
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how do you deal with a supplier whose support is in one language only
how does a pharmacy handle it if you have no local insurance at all
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slightly off topic but how far ahead do people order given transit inside the eu
poland was cheapest
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no local insurance means the pharmacy price, full stop, in every country a member has reported from
a member in spain said their pharmacy price was lower than germany when they compared in 2024, and i cannot verify that
update from 15 months ago: nothing changed on reimbursement where i am and the price went up anyway
as of about a year ago statutory cover in germany for weight indications still was not there, so check before quoting me on it
check the date on that
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unrelated but translate your message and send both versions. that got me answers when english alone had not
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germany, whats the actual difference in cost between a private and a statutory prescription
transit inside the eu was 19 days for me door to door, which is faster than anything i have had from outside it
german pharmacies will order in what they do not stock. mine took three working days when i asked in 2024
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fasting_insulinupdate from 15 months ago: nothing changed on reimbursement where i am and the price…
crossing a border to buy it happens and people are quiet about it, which tells you how comfortable they are with it, i could be wrong
a member reported reimbursement under a national scheme for diabetes and flatly not for weight, and that was the pattern across several countries
a member in spain said their pharmacy price was lower than germany when they compared in 2024, and i cannot verify that
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the cheapest eu route a member found was a local pharmacy with a local prescription, which is no help if you have neither
the language barrier with support is real. i write in short plain english and it works better than good english does
coa-h-2814.pdf
1 page · 210 KB · not retained in the public archive
that is the thing people get wrong constantly. approved and paid for are two completely different processes in the eu, take that with a pinch of salt
can you legally buy in one eu country and take it to another
parcels entering the eu get assessed at the first point of entry rather than at your own border, which caught me out badly
send both languages
nobody here can tell you what is legal in your country and the mods stop that conversation early
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, ymmv
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 - 260nordic pricing genuinely was higher in every comparison i have seen here, and the incomes are higher too, which people forget
i had one pharmacy in another eu country refuse a foreign prescription and one accept it, same month, same paperwork
nordics are brutal
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is vat charged on a parcel coming into the eu and how much are we talking
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i keep a note of what i paid each month because the number moves and my memory of it does not
is the customs handling fee worse than the vat itself
sorry to jump in 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
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
Digest for the week of 2025-07-16 has been published.
the language thing improved a lot when i stopped using idioms, and that was the actual fix
i was wrong about the cross border prescription rules and a pharmacist corrected me in person, which was humbling
is there anywhere in the eu where this is actually cheap
handling fee is worse than vat, take that with a pinch of salt
unrelated but 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
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16:13quiet.hours pinned a message to this channel
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