Hello all,

I have been informed by my U.S. Health Insurance Company that I can be reimbursed for my prescriptions written while I’m in Spain provided they have the “11 digit international code” on the claim forms.  Is anyone familiar with this code?  Is it on the prescription bottle itself by any chance?

If anyone can provide me with information on this, I would be very grateful.

Thank you.

Mike Rutledge

Hi Mike..

I could be totally wrong here, but I think perhaps the number relates to the barcode reference on the packaging of each drug prescribed. There is one small problem however; I have in front of me a pack of paracetamol tablets obtained from a farmacia and the barcode digits actually comprise 12 digits. This could however be due to a difference in standards of barcodes, (UPC-xx and EAN-xx) it would appear that there are several different standards and these standards may or may not be totally compatible. The bar code relates to the manufacturer, and product type.

See http://www.barcodeisland.com/ean13.phtml which includes the somewhat priceless quote…

EAN-13 BACKGROUND INFORMATION
EAN-13, based upon the UPC-A standard, was implemented by the International Article Numbering Association (EAN) in Europe. This standard was implemented mostly because the UPC-A standard was not well designed for international use, but probably partly because no-one likes the U.S. to be in charge of anything-especially the Europeans. 😊

I would suggest you get back to your health insurance provider and ask them precisely what they are looking for.

When a product is prescribed over here, the farmacia removes and retains the barcode part of the packaging for billing and stock control repeat orders, so if this is the information required by your insurers you would have to copy it down before leaving the farmacia.

Sorry cant be more specific!

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FB,

Thanks so much for your information.  I’m embarrassed to say that the customer service people that I talked to at my Health Insurance company, along with the Supervisor had a combined IQ of a rock!  They had no clue as to the realm of my situation and I may as well have talked to my cats.  They did however send me the reimbursement forms and they clearly state what has to be included on the form in order for me to be reimbursed.

I will continue to research this as my meds will be expensive and if reimbursement is possible then I want to take advantage of it.

Thanks again for your help.  I appreciate it.

Mike

Typical customer services response then… Ah well good luck!

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