The burden of chronic diseases in the Albanian population is constantly increasing, making the funds designated for coverage with reimbursable medicaments to be insufficient.

According to official data from the Compulsory Insurance Fund, in 2023 chronic diseases increased reimbursement expenses by 227.7 million ALL, or 6% more than in 2022.

In mid-2023, the government increased the budget for medication reimbursement to 12 billion ALL from 11.4 billion at the beginning of the year, but even these were not enough, generating 58 million ALL in arrears.

Experts believe that the aging population and the impact of the Covid pandemic increased chronic diseases.

In the last year, the “Pensioner without a term” group registered 70,018 more reimbursed prescriptions.

Diabetes or Hypertension as diseases with a high incidence in the population received more funds, causing the group of insulins to show a high increase in reimbursement costs.

Likewise, the medicaments that treat the problems of the “cardiovascular system” have increased by about 221.5 million lek more than in 2022.

They account for 24.8% of reimbursement expenses.

Hospital medicaments, which include medicaments for the treatment of tumors and which have a high financial impact, account for 24.2% of reimbursement expenses.

Comparable data show that while the burden of disease in the population has increased rapidly, public funds that reimburse the treatment of the sick have not followed the same trend.

In 2019, the reimbursement fund accounted for 24% of the total expenses of Compulsory Health Care Insurance Fund, while in 2024 only 20.6%.