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Practicing pharmacists per 100,000 population, 2021: 72
Community pharmacies per 100,000 population, 2021: 23
Expenditure on retail pharmaceuticals per capita, USD PPP, 2021
– Prescription medicines: $396
– Over-the-counter medicines: $137
– Total: $534
Expenditure on retail pharmaceuticals by type of financing, 2021:
– Government/compulsory schemes: 54%
– Voluntary health insurance schemes: 0%
– Out-of-pocket spending: 46%
– Other: 0%

Source: OECD (2023), Health at a Glance 2023: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, doi.org/10.1787/7a7afb35-en.

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“The Ministry of Health sets an annual cap for expenditures associated to medicines used in the treatment of selected conditions (i.e. high-cost cancer medicines prescribed and administered in inpatient settings) and paid for over and above other hospital payments.

“The objective of the cap is to control spending, prioritise expenditures according to health priorities, and encourage the use of biosimilar drugs and generics. Factors in setting the cap in pharmaceutical spending are:

“ Overall fiscal/government budget constraints
“ Epidemiologic trends
“ Past trends in pharmaceutical spending
“ Medicines in development pipelines
“ Potential generic/biosimilar entry/uptake
“ Predictable changes in medicines distribution costs.

“Each health fund negotiates individual caps with individual health care providers but the cap is not always binding (for example in case of unexpected expenditure growth). Individual health insurance funds set their own expenditure caps, but usually follow a template prepared by the Ministry of Health in the annual Reimbursement Directive. Individual caps for the Health Insurance Funds can be found on their respective webpages as part of their health-insurance plans for 2018 (budget item 2.1.5).12 The Directive is binding only in cases where health insurance funds and health care providers fail to reach an agreement on the setting of individual caps.”

Source: Alexa J, Rečka L, Votápková J, van Ginneken E, Spranger A, Wittenbecher F. Czech Republic: Health system review. Health Systems in Transition, 2015; 17(1):1–165.

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World Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems and policies in the US and sixteen other nations.

Page last updated January 30, 2025 by Doug McVay, Editor.