“In order to finance certain healthcare expenses, authorized medicine distributors or their legal representatives are required to pay quarterly contributions for the drugs included in national healthcare programs, as well as drugs used in outpatient treatment (…),” says an emergency ordinance approved by the Government.
The contribution amount, reporting, control and penalization procedure, as well as the contribution’s destination, will be set through a Government decision within 30 days.
The ordinance, which repeals previous rules on this topic, advocates the need to implement a “sustainable clawback system” to expand the public healthcare system’s financing sources. The act says that failing to do so would negatively impact the quality of medical services and make it impossible to properly provide these services.
The clawback system was introduced in the fall of 2009 and required all drug producers selling on the Romanian market to contribute quarterly to the public healthcare system by 5%-11% of their revenue from the sale of products used by the national healthcare programs, included on the list of discounted/free medicine, or used in hospitals.
Producers that failed to pay were not entitled for a refund from the single national social health insurance fund.
The Government expected an extra 590 million lei (EUR130 million) from this tax in 2011, RON600 million in 2012 and RON620 million in 2013. At the time, the companies complained they were being overtaxed.
This year, in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund, the Government pledged to clarify the clawback tax’s legal framework.
(EUR1=RON4.2341)