BIFAP - Base de Datos para la Investigación Farmacoepidemiológica en el Ámbito Público (Pharmacoepidemiological Research Database for Public Health Systems)

People who are registered with a primary care physician within the Spanish NHS (=98,9% of the Spanish population) in the 9 out of the 17 Spanish regions contribute data. Regional Healthcare Services act as health service providers for all levels of care in their territories. Only a proportion of civil servants (around 4% of the Spanish population) opts out of the general public system and they are covered by the private sector. There is a 13% of the Spanish population that contracts with private-for-profit health insurance companies, with an important regional variation. However, in general private health schemes do not cover outpatient prescription medicines and these patients usually are also registered and attend NHS for healthcare and reimbursement. This yields to only 1.1% of the Spanish population are not registered with a primary care physician within the Spanish NHS.