Medicines on preferential prescriptions. How and where to get discounted medications

Most citizens of our country do not know that they are entitled to free or reduced-cost medicines. And those who know about this possibility do not know where to get medications with free prescriptions. In this article we will figure out who issues special prescriptions, how to get them, what documents are needed for this, where and within what period you need to exercise your right to receive medications from a pharmacy.

How to get a special preferential prescription for free medicines

Important! A prescription for which medications can be issued at a reduced cost or free of charge must be issued on.

To obtain a prescription, it is enough to contact the attending physician of the medical institution where the patient is served on the basis of the compulsory health insurance policy issued to him. Medicines will be issued free of charge only if the prescription form is filled out correctly:

it must be secured with the seal of the clinic, the signatures of the attending physician and the head of medicine. institution;
the table on the left should list the medications the patient needs (name, dosage);
on the form on the right, the pharmacy pharmacist must put the date of dispensing of medications, drug code, name, quantity (the pharmacy stamp is placed);
the doctor’s personal information, doctor’s code, patient’s medical card number, insurance policy number, insurance certificate number of compulsory pension insurance, information about the patient, validity period of the prescription, its series and date of discharge, source of financing for the medicines and the share of payment from his funds must be indicated .

The patient receives a form in his hands, which contains a reminder with the name of the medication, dosage and rules for taking the drug.

What documents should I present to my doctor to receive a prescription for free medications?

The package of documents that will need to be provided to the attending physician, from whom you need to receive a prescription form for subsidized drugs, includes the following papers (usually a complete list of documents is posted in clinics):

Document	Comment
Russian passport	For patients over 14 years of age
Birth certificate	For patients under 14 years of age. If medications are needed by a child under 3 years of age, this document is sufficient to obtain a prescription.
Compulsory medical insurance policy	Issued by an insurance company
Certificate of pension insurance (SNILS)	Registered with the Pension Fund
Certificate from a specialist of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation	Evidence that the citizen did not refuse a set of social services, including preferential medications, in favor of monetary compensation.
A document on the basis of which a special prescription for free medicines is issued	Depends on which category of beneficiaries the patient belongs to. Repressed persons need to prepare a certificate of a victim of repression, disabled people - a conclusion from the ITU bureau, children from large families - a certificate of a large family, etc. Read also the article ⇒.

Where can I get free prescriptions?

Commercial pharmacies, as well as pharmacies that do not participate in the program to provide people with free medicines, do not receive monetary compensation from the Government for issuing free medicines, and therefore refuse to issue them.

Free medicines or drugs at a reduced cost, partly paid for from the budget of the country or region, are issued exclusively at pharmacies participating in the federal program for providing citizens with preferential medicines. When applying, it is enough to have a prescription form with you; the pharmacist has no right to demand other papers. If a child or disabled person needs medications, a relative can go to the pharmacy to get them.

Expert opinion on the question of where you can get medications with free prescriptions

According to the statement of the Minister of Health of the Russian Federation, Skvortsova Veronica Igorevna, citizens should be aware of their rights and actively use them, and doctors in most cases do not inform patients about the possibility of obtaining preferential medications.

It is quite simple to exercise your right, since the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation has taken care to simplify the procedure as much as possible. The applicant will be required to provide a minimum package of documents to the attending physician, obtain a prescription from him and present it to the pharmacist at the pharmacy. According to the instructions of Federal Law No. 122-FZ dated August 22, 2004, you can get free medicines even while in another region.

Validity period for prescriptions for free medications

The period of time during which you need to receive free medications according to a prescription issued by a doctor depends on who received the prescription form and for which drugs:

Legislative acts on the topic

Federal Law of August 22, 2004 No. 122-FZ	On the monetization of benefits, on the list of citizens who receive medicines with free prescriptions
Order of the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation dated January 1, 2017 No. 1175	Approval of prescription forms for receiving preferential medications
Appendix No. 3 to Order of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation dated 02/07/2003 No. 14n	Requirements for the tear-off stub of a prescription for subsidized drugs

Common mistakes

Error: A pregnant woman applied for a prescription for free medications without providing a certificate of registration at the antenatal clinic.

You need to fill out a prescription for deferred care at the pharmacy. There they are required to register it in the register of unsatisfied demand. Such a magazine should be in every pharmacy that dispenses drugs on preferential prescriptions.

If a prescription is registered in the backlog, it does not need to be left at the pharmacy. The patient takes it with him, but it must be marked with a mark indicating its acceptance for service: date of registration, pharmacy number, signature of the pharmacist.

After registering a prescription, the pharmacy must submit an application for the drug to the pharmaceutical company authorized to supply preferential drugs to the region and provide the drug to the patient within 10-15 days.

The patient can call the pharmaceutical company that supplies subsidized drugs to the region and find out whether the required drug is in stock, when it will be delivered to the pharmacy, and why it is not available. You can also notify the company that the prescription has been accepted by the pharmacy for deferred service (the pharmacy may not inform the company about the deferred prescription). The phone number of the pharmaceutical company can be found at the pharmacy.

If 16 days have passed and the drug has not yet arrived at the pharmacy, you need to write a complaint to the authorized pharmaceutical company that you have not received the discounted drug.

You need to wait for a response, which may indicate that the Ministry of Health did not hold scheduled tenders for the purchase of medicines or the medicine was not indicated in the specification for public procurement. The company's response will be the basis for going to court - based on the content of the response, the defendant is determined: the Ministry of Health and Social Development, a pharmacy, a pharmaceutical company, etc.

A medicine prescribed to a patient free of charge under a preferential prescription can be purchased with one’s own funds, and then demand payment of compensation from the pharmacy. To do this, you need to write a claim to the pharmacy with a request to reimburse the costs. If the pharmacy does not reimburse the money spent, you can go to court.

The court may refuse to satisfy a claim for reimbursement of funds if the medicine is purchased independently and the prescription has not been put on deferred maintenance.

In Russia, certain categories of citizens have the right to be treated at public expense, but few know about this possibility. Even fewer people enjoy this privilege. The national priority project “Health” is designed to provide assistance to the population with benefits. By law, the treatment of some serious diseases must be paid for by the state. If doctors demand that citizens who have the right to free treatment pay for expensive drugs, they are flagrantly violating the requirements of the law. But in practice it turns out that not everything is so simple.

How to get a discounted prescription for medications? Where should I go for this and what documents should I present? What are the rules for prescribing and dispensing preferential medications under the ONLS program? We will try to answer these questions in this article.

Who is eligible for discounted medications?

All categories of citizens entitled to receive preferential benefits and social support are divided into regional and federal beneficiaries in accordance with Law No. 122 on the monetization of benefits. The law includes the following as federal beneficiaries:

Veterans of military operations and WWII;
Military personnel, including those in the reserve.
Family members of deceased veterans;
Heroes of the USSR, Russian Federation, holders of the Order of Glory;
Parents, minor children, widows of persons holding the title of Hero, full holders of the Order of Glory;
Knights of the Order of Labor Glory, 3 degrees, heroes of Socialist Labor;
Disabled due to health reasons;
Persons awarded the badge “Resident of besieged Leningrad”.

These categories of citizens are entitled to medications, the payment for which is partially or fully carried out from the federal budget. By refusing these benefits, citizens of these categories can receive a certain amount of money each month instead.

Regional beneficiaries are patients who fall under the regional program “7 nosologies” for non-disabled persons with certain diseases or social status. Among them:

Low-income families with children under 6 years of age;
Children under 3 years old;
Pregnant women.

Money for prescription drugs for these categories is allocated from the local budget. The amount of funds allocated under the regional program is an order of magnitude lower than the federal one. Different regions have different conditions for receiving social support required by law.

How to get a discounted prescription for medications?

You can get medications for free with a prescription from a doctor in a public hospital or from a private practitioner included in the register of medical organizations working in the field of compulsory health insurance. Since doctors do not often offer patients the opportunity to exercise their right to receive medications for free, citizens must exercise their rights independently.

The first thing you need to do is come to an appointment with a doctor and confirm the medical conditions that entitle you to receive free medications. This procedure is the main condition that can be used by a representative of the preferential category of recipients of free drug treatment. The doctor is obliged to write out a prescription on a special prescription form according to form No. 148-1/u-06 (l). In order for a citizen to receive a prescription for preferential drug coverage, a certain package of documents must be provided. It includes:

Passport;
A document confirming the right to benefits;
A certificate issued by the Pension Fund stating that there was no refusal to receive social assistance in favor of monetary compensation;
Medical insurance;
SNILS (insurance number).

If a child under 3 years of age needs free medications, the doctor must only show his birth certificate. Based on these documents, the doctor must issue a prescription and be sure to enter the prescriptions into the patient’s outpatient card. It may be necessary over time to take a card statement to confirm your appointment. The prescription form must be filled out correctly. It is signed by the head of the clinic. It is important that the form contains all the necessary signatures and seals - the doctor and the clinic.

The doctor can give the patient the addresses of pharmacies that serve preferential patients; they cannot be obtained from any pharmacy. Information about pharmacies that have the right to dispense medications to beneficiaries can be posted in a visible place in the clinic. The issued prescription usually has a limited validity period of up to 1 month. A prescription for a longer period of up to 3 months can only be issued for children or disabled people of group I. If your prescription has expired, you need to go back to the clinic to get a new one.

If the pharmacy does not have the necessary drugs, the pharmacist can recommend their analogues or write a prescription deferred for 10 days with registration in a special journal. When the medicine is in stock at the pharmacy, you can come and get it. If the patient had to independently purchase medications that were not available in the pharmacy, you need to keep the receipt and contact the insurance company with which the patient took out a medical policy. She is obliged to reimburse the money spent by the policyholder.

Sample of a preferential prescription form (form 148-1/у-06(l))

Order No. 1175n, as amended, effective from January 1, 2017, approved the form of prescription forms, including those for receiving subsidized medications. A sample prescription form can be found here. Under the name of the form in the upper left corner there should be a stamp of the medical organization that issued the prescription, OGRN code, on the opposite side - the name of the form. Below is a table and all the necessary data. These include:

Source of funding;
Share of payment from source;
Validity period of the prescription (15, 30, 90 days);
Series, date of issue of the prescription;
Patient's name, date of birth;
SNILS;
Compulsory medical insurance policy number;
Patient's medical card number;
Full name of the attending physician, his code;
On the left - drugs (name, dosage), signature, seal of the attending physician;
On the right is the part filled out by the pharmacy worker (prescription date, drug code, trade name, quantity, amount, pharmacy seal).

The patient prescription tear-off stub contains the dosage of the drug and how to take it. In addition, this document is a security printed product of level “B”, produced on pink paper measuring 10 cm x 15 cm, it must meet the requirements specified in Appendix No. 3 to the order of the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation dated February 7, 2003 No. 14n “On the implementation of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of November 11, 2002 N 817.”

Rules for prescribing and dispensing preferential medications under the ONLS program

To receive assistance under the state program for the provision of essential medicines (ONLS), it is necessary that the drugs prescribed to the patient according to indications are contained in the List of Medicines (RF Government Decree No. 2724-r dated December 26, 2015) and Government Order 2053-r. as amended on December 27, 2010.

To receive medicines and medical products under this program, you need to contact health care facilities that provide primary medical care. Specialized therapeutic and preventive nutrition can be obtained at health care facilities that provide medical and genetic care.

At the registry of the health care facility, an outpatient card or a history of the child’s development is created for the patient, which is marked with the letter “L”. It also indicates the patient's insurance number (SNILS). The patient’s medical record or the child’s development history indicates the period during which he can exercise the right to state assistance.

The basis for prescribing medications under the ONLS program are the documents provided (listed at the beginning of the article). The doctor examines the patient and, based on its results, writes a prescription for medications, medical devices or medical products for disabled children included in the List. These medications can be obtained from pharmacies that are eligible to dispense medications free of charge under this program.

If a citizen has temporarily traveled to the territory of another subject of the federation, he can receive free medicines at the appropriate health care facility. You must present documents, an extract from your medical record or the child’s development history indicating SNILS. When prescribing medications to such a patient, they must write “non-resident” on the prescription form on the right at the top of it.

Conclusion

To receive a preferential prescription for medications, the patient must contact his attending physician or a specialized specialist at the healthcare facility to which he is assigned. Based on the documents provided confirming the right to the benefit, the doctor of the medical institution will write a prescription, which can be sold at one of the pharmacies serving benefit patients.