The mention “NS” for “non-substitutable” affixed to prescriptions from general practitioners is too expensive for Social Security. This formula obliges the pharmacist to give the patient a drug in its original, non-generic form. Which no longer suits the government, which has gone to war against excessive health spending.
To encourage the “all generic”, drugs that cost less to the patient and therefore to Social Security, the Health Insurance is competing with ideas. The latest is to sanction recalcitrant doctors to generics.
From the end of the year, prescribers who continue to abuse the mention “NS” should receive financial penalties, according to the director of Health Insurance, Frédéric van Roekeghe, quoted by Le Figaro. A hundred general practitioners would be in the sights of the Secu.
The first doctors’ union, the CSMF, does not intend to be pushed around. “Medicare must not interfere in the doctor’s prescription, answers the Secu Jean-Paul Ortiz, president of the CSMF, questioned by Le Figaro. It will be necessary to check each case concerned, because I am wary of crimes statistics.”
The generic lever
Marisol Touraine, the Minister of Health wishes to achieve 10 billion euros in savings over three years on health expenditure. The sale of generics represents one of the most important levers of this policy. In an interview with Les Echos at the end of April, the minister explained that she was aiming for 3.5 billion euros in savings in three years thanks to the reduction in drug prices and the generalization of generics.
If the Sécu encourages doctors to get more involved in this race for savings, practitioners are not the only ones who are not yet totally convinced by generics. At the end of 2013, 4 out of 10 French people admitted not having confidence in the effectiveness of generics (Ifop survey).
