Profile of requests for high cost drugs to the Unified Health System in Minas Gerais, Brazil

Universal access to health services, predicted by the Federal Constitution, should ensure integrated care, including specialized component medications (high cost). Considering that this is one of the biggest challenges to the Unified Health System, the aim of this study was to analyze the costs of providing these drugs to users of private health plans, by the state Department of Health of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Processes requests for specialized component of the medications rejected by the State Department of Health in the first semester of 2008 were selected. Record Linkage's method was used to check with the National Health Agency, whether or not the applicants were beneficiaries of health private plans. The data showed that about 37% of the expenses on these drugs were requests from users of private plans and the median cost of these medications was higher, with a significant difference in relation to requests from users who had no plan. It was also observed that the cost of drugs requested by the Regional Health Management of Belo Horizonte was significantly higher when compared to others. We can conclude that it is necessary further studies on policy implementation of pharmaceutical care by private health plans in order to minimize public expenses.

drugs of specialized component; health plans; health expenses; unified health system