What an online prescription costs in Malta

Two separate costs, and why the distinction matters

The assessment fee pays for a doctor to read your answers and your documents and to decide whether the treatment is appropriate. The medicine price pays the pharmacy for the product. They are collected by different people, at different moments, and neither one includes the other.

This is the same arrangement as in any private consultation. You pay a doctor for the assessment, not for a particular outcome, and nobody expects the fee back because the conclusion was that a medicine was not appropriate. The same logic decides refunds, which is why the distinction is worth reading rather than skipping.

For a long-term treatment the arithmetic usually runs the other way from what people expect. The medicine is the recurring cost and the assessment is the occasional one, so over a year it is the price at the counter that dominates, not the fee.

What the MEDINOW fee covers

A repeat prescription request costs 24,90 €. Contraception costs 24,90 €. Weight loss treatment costs 29,90 €. Priority handling, where you want your request moved to the front of the queue, is an additional 9,90 €.

The fee covers the medical assessment: a doctor reads your questionnaire and the documents you attach, applies the product information and clinical judgement, and reaches a decision. It does not cover the issuing of a document, because whether a document is issued is the outcome of the assessment and not something that can be sold in advance.

It also does not cover the medicine, a laboratory test, an examination, a referral or any contact with the government schemes. There is no subscription and no membership: one request, one fee.

Why the medicine is paid for at the pharmacy

We do not sell or supply medicines, and we do not take payment for them. The pharmacy sells the product and sets its retail price, within the rules that apply in Malta. Which products containing a given active substance are authorised here is a matter for the Medicines Authority.

The practical consequence is that we cannot quote you a medicine price, and any figure we gave you would be a guess. If the amount matters to your decision, ring a pharmacy with the substance name, the strength and the pack size before you order an assessment. Pharmacists answer that question routinely.

Prices also differ between pharmacies for the same product, and a generic containing the same active substance is often materially cheaper than the originator brand. Asking whether a generic is available is the single change that most often reduces what you pay.

How government funding changes the amount you pay

Malta funds medicines through the Government Formulary List and supplies them through the POYC scheme, under which an entitled patient collects government-funded medicines from a community pharmacy of their choice. Whether a medicine is on that list, and whether a given patient is entitled, is decided by the Ministry for Health under the rules of the scheme.

A prescription issued by us is a private cross-border document. It is not part of the Government Formulary List and not part of the POYC scheme, we arrange no reimbursement, and nothing about it changes an entitlement you already have or creates one you do not.

That leads to an honest piece of advice. If you are entitled under a government scheme and your medicine is on the list, that route will normally cost you less than any private one, and the place to ask is your POYC pharmacy or your health centre. The private route earns its place where the scheme does not reach: a visitor without an entitlement here, a medicine outside the list, or a gap in a long-term treatment that you need to close yourself.

Generics, pack sizes and the questions that actually change the bill

Three questions move the number at the counter more than anything else. Is a generic with the same active substance available. Is a larger pack cheaper per dose for a long-term treatment. And is there a therapeutically equivalent substance in the same class that costs less, which is a question for the prescriber rather than the pharmacist.

Because our prescriptions name the active substance rather than a brand, as the Annex to Commission Implementing Directive 2012/52/EU requires, the pharmacist is not tied to one manufacturer's pack unless there is a medical reason to be. That is useful for you, and it is the ordinary situation rather than a concession.

One caveat. For a few treatments, switching between products is not a neutral matter, and biological medicines are the clearest case. Where that applies, the prescription says so and the reason belongs on it.

When the fee is refunded and when it is not

If the doctor declines the request on medical or legal grounds, the fee is refunded. If the doctor asks you for documentation, you have at least 7 days to provide it and we will remind you before the deadline; if the consultation cannot be completed, we refund the full amount.

If a prescription is issued, the assessment has been carried out and the fee is not refunded. That is the whole of the refund position, and it is set out in our terms rather than only here.

We do not offer an unconditional refund and we will not describe one, because we could not honour it. What we can say is what the fee buys: a named doctor reading your case and taking responsibility for the decision, whichever way that decision goes.

What we issue, and what we do not do

How we work: you fill in a medical questionnaire and a doctor reads your answers and the documents you attach. There is no video consultation, no telephone consultation and no live chat. If the doctor decides a prescription is appropriate, you receive a PDF prescription by e-mail, drawn up to the Annex of Commission Implementing Directive 2012/52/EU. You print it or open it on your phone and bring it to a pharmacy in Malta together with photo identification.

Two things about the document are worth stating plainly. The doctor is registered in Poland and is not registered with the Medical Council of Malta, which keeps the mandatory register of doctors here. The prescription is therefore a private cross-border document: it is not entered in any Maltese state health record, it does not appear in myHealth, and it is not part of the Government Formulary List or the POYC scheme. You pay for the medicine yourself at the pharmacy.

We do not prescribe benzodiazepines, Z-drug hypnotics, opioids, stimulants or gabapentinoids. Narcotic and psychotropic substances are excluded from cross-border prescriptions under Article 11(6) of Directive 2011/24/EU, and a first diagnosis, an antibiotic for a new infection or anything that needs an examination belongs with a doctor who can examine you in Malta.

A repeat prescription request costs 24,90 €, contraception 24,90 € and weight loss treatment 29,90 €; priority handling is an additional 9,90 €. The fee covers the medical assessment of your answers by a doctor, not the issuing of a document. If the doctor declines on medical or legal grounds, the fee is refunded. If the doctor asks you for documentation, you have at least 7 days to provide it and we will remind you before the deadline; if the consultation cannot be completed, we refund the full amount.