Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 26 July 2022
1969. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Health the estimated full-year cost of reducing the maximum payment on the drug payment scheme to €40; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41508/22]
View answerThe Drug Payment Scheme (DPS) provides for the refund of the amount by which expenditure on approved prescribed medicines or medical and surgical appliances exceeds a named threshold in any calendar month. The DPS is not means tested and is available to anyone ordinarily resident in Ireland. The DPS significantly reduces the cost burden for families and individuals with ongoing expenditure on medicines.
On 1 January 2022, the DPS threshold was reduced to €100 per month. On 1 March 2022, the DPS threshold was further reduced the DPS threshold to €80. This has resulted in an increase of almost 41,500 claimants on December 2021 levels.
When producing models to estimate the impact of downward threshold reductions, the Health Service Executive (HSE) examines the impact of previous downward changes. This requires a reasonable amount of data at each threshold change to provide some level of assurance that an estimate is reasonable, especially as the HSE does not have data on sub-threshold prescriptions. Given the recency of the DPS threshold changes, there is insufficient data available to the HSE to robustly estimate the impact of further changes.
However, based on preliminary claiming data, it is estimated that the full year cost of reducing the DPS threshold from the current threshold of €80 per month to €40 per month would be approximately €53.6m.
This data is based on the claiming month May 2022 and is annualised to determine the full year cost (i.e., multiplied by 12).
It is important to note that this costing excludes the additional cost for individuals who are currently below the current DPS threshold level of €80 per month. It also excludes the impact resulting from an aging demographic or the impact that a loss of medical card eligibility could have on claiming under the DPS.
