The medicines gap

Schöffski cited a study demonstrating that if all German patients suffering from heart attacks had been subsequently treated with statins, this would have resulted in cost reductions of almost E750 million ($812 million) over five years.

In Germany, cost containment strategies such as the "drug budget" and the "score systems" introduced in the 1990s for office-based physicians, further contribute to the treatment gap. Those policies have caused doctors to change their prescribing behavior, and they don't prescribe medicines if their budget is fully tapped. If they exceed their budget, they are forced to pay back the difference to the statutory healthcare insurance...