Australian Ministry of Health stops the reimbursement of homeopathic drugs

Wed, 2017 / 11 / 08

The Australian Ministry of Health has excluded 17 alternative treatment methods (incl. homeopathy) from private cost reimbursement in the course of a new health care reform. According to a cross-sectional study, 14 out of 17 examined treatments did not show a continuous medical effect and the remaining 3 methods did not provide enough data. By waiving reimbursement, the Australian government hopes to reduce costs by one billion Australian Dollars (approx. 645 million Euro).

The medical effect of alternative treatments is currently also in the focus of medical debate in Germany. Homeopathic drugs are not an integral part of the SHI’s service catalogue – nevertheless, some health insurances grant the reimbursement of homeopathic treatments for a maximum of two years under specific conditions.

An analysis which the scientific journal PLoS undertook in 2015, revealed that patients undergoing homeopathic treatment caused far higher costs than patients treated with conventional medicine. The investigation was based on administrative data of 44,550 patients of the German SHI Techniker Krankenkasse. Andreas Gassen, head of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physician, criticized that „it is absurd how much money some SHIs waste on globules and tinctures without any evidential treatment effectiveness – even after the SHI’s declaration!”.

There were no serious violations in the German parliament related to the waiving of reimbursement – only the social-democratic party (SPD) in Bremen expressed an interest to prohibit the reimbursement of homeopathic medicinal with the regulation of non-statutory benefits (so-called “Satzungsleistungen”) without being able to give a specific reason for this demand.

Please click on the following links for more information in German:

https://www.apotheke-adhoc.de/nachrichten/detail/internationales/homoeopathie-australien-stoppt-erstattung-alternative-behandlungsmethoden/?tx_aponews_newsdetail%5B%40widget_4%5D%5BcurrentPage%5D=3&tx_aponews_newsdetail%5B%40widget_4%5D%5BitemsPerPage%5D=1&cHash=20387e350fb4c9395b410f969c798d6d

https://www.deutsche-apotheker-zeitung.de/news/artikel/2017/07/24/cdu-csu-wollen-homoeopathie-aus-der-apothekenpflicht-entlassen