Traduction de «Reimbursement aid » (Anglais → Français) :

Under EU law, taxes that must be reimbursed when these taxes have been levied in breach of EU rules should be repaid according to the national rules on internal tax reimbursements. This reimbursement should not be made impossible or excessively difficult.

While it is true that the Portuguese legislation (specifically, Decree-Law No 177/92) provides for the reimbursement of non-hospital medical care that it considers to be ‘highly specialised’, where this cannot be provided in Portugal, the reimbursement is subject to a threefold prior authorisation (that is to say: (i) a detailed medical report in favour of the treatment, (ii) approval of that report by the medical director of the hospital service, and (iii) the consent of the Director General for Hospitals).

Where there is no provision for reimbursement in full, in order to place the patient in the position he would have been in had the national health service with which he is registered been able to provide him free of charge, within a medically acceptable period, with treatment equivalent to that which he received in the host Member State, the competent institution must in addition reimburse him the difference between the cost of that equivalent treatment in the State of residence up to the total amount invoiced for the treatment received in the State of treatment and the amount reimbursed by the institution of that State pursuant to the l ...[+++]egislation of that State, where the first amount is greater than the second.

The Advocate General notes that it is established that individuals are entitled to reimbursement of national charges which are imposed in breach of Community law but that it is for the Member States to determine the procedural rules applicable to this reimbursement.

The proposed Directive would also clarify the rights of patients by setting out, based on European Court of Justice case law, the conditions under which national social security systems must reimburse the costs of medical care received in other Member States. For non-hospital services, patients must be reimbursed by their home Member State for health care elsewhere in the EU, to the extent and at the tariff that the services concerned would normally be reimbursed if administered in the home Member State.

Although the Court confirmed that under the rules of Regulation 1408/71 reimbursement could only be made according to the tariffs of the Member State where the treatment was provided, it held that, under the principle of freedom to provide services, the insured person was entitled to additional reimbursement from the Member State of insurance if the latter's legislation would have provided for a higher level of reimbursement had the hospital treatment been received there.