Resident healtcare - Page 2

You need to have Spanish full healthcare and belong to the national healthcare system registered through the INSS to get the tax threshold discounts on medication as a whole. It doesn't work that way when you are on Private healthcare or Convenio Especial. 

Steve 

Reading  this  post  about  Person  having a  pay  full cost  of  medication 💊 

I  am reaching  Retirement  age next March.  I  have a  few medical issues  that require  Medication 💊.  I  have  on occasions  while in Torrevieja  on Holiday  had to purchase  some  medication  and found  it  very  expensive  compared  to Ireland 🇮🇪 

If  I  retire  and go to live permanently  in Torrevieja  am I  liable  for  full  costs  of  Medication. Plus  1  item on   my prescription  is  not available  as  strong as  medication  prescription.  My medication  is  25mg  and  could  only  obtain  20mg  on last visit  to Spain 🇪🇸  and it is not effective for me 

Hope you  can shine some light on  my query 

Thanks  in advance ☺ 

If you are over retirement age in your home country you will get an S1 which transfers your healthcare to Spain and you will be issued with a SIP card. You will pay 10% of the cost of the medication.

After you complete your first tax return the following year, your SIP card will be updated with your earnings level (they won't know that until you complete the tax return). If you earn less than €18,000 a year in the Valencia Region, your prescriptions will be completely free. Over €18,000 you will pay 10% of the cost of the medication up to a maximum of around 18 euro a month up to earnings of 100,000 a year and, if you earn over that, 60% with a cap of €62 a month (these levels are different in other regions and only Valencia and the Canaries have free under 18k, everyone else pays 10% with a cap of around €8 a month.)

Until you complete a tax return, you will pay 10% with no cap regardless of earnings.

Only those who have an S1 or are working in Spain and paying social security payments get these reductions. If under 65 (retirement age in Spain) those working will pay up to 60% of the cost depending on their earnings.

This could all change when we get a new regional government in July.

Thanks for  a  very quick  helpful reply 👍. So  I  am  still  on  course  to move to Spain.  Just  need  to  sort out  medicine 💊   strength 💪 

It may of course be possible that there is a higher strength Spanish equivalent of your medication, a Farmacia would be able to tell you.

My husband has various drugs, one or two of which are either not available under that particular brand here, or not at the same strength. The GP researched the drug and prescribed what is effectively the same thing under a different manufacturer.

I am Australian. Eligible for pension next year. What is the S1. Can someone explain please?

European and other countries transfer health cover from one country to the other. The S1 is a form which states your country of origin will pay for your healthcare in Spain (or any other EU country) if you are of retirement age in your home country, registered disabled, under the age of 18 or pregnant. 

I don't know if Australia has a similar system. UK would pay to the Spanish government around 3500 euro a year to cover your health needs but I think they now just pay on an as used basis so the bills for your treatment go to your home country.

Thank you so the S1is a British thing. I will have to check with Aust govt for that.

No, it's a European thing. Valid in all European countries. Used to be called an E111.

Australia does not have a reciprocal health care agreement with Spain. It does with , Belgium, Finland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Ireland. Slovenia, Sweden and the UK but not Spain.

I say again, simply attaining state pensionable age of itself does NOT trigger entitlement to an S1, you must also be drawing the pension.

To illustrate the point, at one time I looked into temporarily suspending my state pension, which you can do once and for up to 2 years, in order to be able to draw down income from other sources without it increasing tax liability.

Turns out that suspending a pension automatically nullifies an S1 so clearly it was not going to be a viable plan!

The same would apply if you deferred taking a state pension.