Top up drugs and health insurance

Top academics from the London School of Hygiene have warned that new ‘top-up’ drugs could create a loophole that health insurance companies and even drug companies could exploit.

April saw changes to legislation that allow patients to purchase extra drugs without losing any entitlement to National Health Service care. Top-up drugs need to be received privately, outside the NHS, where possible. Therefore patients may need to use private hospitals .

The researchers, who were published in the British Medical Journal, reporredly commented: the risk remains that the introduction of additional payments may herald the start of overt integration of publicly and privately financed health care .

Monica Desai, the lead author of the study, reportedly said: Transparent procedures need to be put in place to ensure that patients are protected not only from large additional payments but also from potential exploitation by insurance companies and drug manufacturers.