Technical assistance
Technical assistance of support products falls within the scope of the System of Assignment of Support Products (SAPA), created by Decree-Law n.º 93/2009, of 16 April. SAPA covers people with permanent or temporary disabilities.
According to this Decree-Law, “support products” means any product, instrument, equipment or technical system used by a person with a disability, specially produced or available that prevents, compensates, attenuates or neutralizes the functional limitation.
SAPA contributes to the implementation of a global and integrated policy to respond to persons with disabilities or temporary incapacity, in order to compensate and mitigate the limitations of activity and participation restrictions due to disability or temporary incapacity, namely by the free provision of support products.
The Decree-Law n.º. 93/2009, of 16 April, together with Order n.º 5212/2014, of 28 March, regulates the allocation of Support Products – Technical Assistance for persons with disabilities and establishes that the funds for technical assistance are allocated to hospital entities through the Central Administration of the Health System (ACSS).
The amount earmarked for the support products is stablished annually by joint orders of the members of the Government responsible for finance, social security, health and education.
The contribution of the support products is 100%. In hospital units and other health prescribing entities, the support products are directly supplied to the users, and there is no refund.
Support products are prescribed by a multidisciplinary team, working with the prescribing entity, made up of at least two technicians. In case of mandatory medical prescription, support products are prescribed only by a doctor.
In order to finance these support products, the entities involved in SAPA must fill out an online form.
