Introduction. Patients with diabetes are entitled to free outpatient medications at a discount, however, a number of citizens face problems both at the stage of prescribing and obtaining medicines. Purpose. The purpose of this study was to study the problems of realizing the right of patients with diabetes mellitus to preferential medicine supply. Materials and methods. A cross-sectional medico-sociological study was conducted. The research base was the Murmansk City Polyclinic No. 1 and the Arkhangelsk City Clinical Hospital No. 7 of the Arkhangelsk Region. The study included 177 questionnaires. The critical significance level was taken equal to 0.05. Calculation of 95% confidence intervals (CI) was carried out by the Fisher method. Statistical data processing was carried out using the SPSS ver. 23. Results. Patients with diabetes mellitus overwhelmingly (89.3%; 95% CI 84.3-93.4) exercise their right to receive discounted drugs and test strips for the treatment and control of diabetes mellitus, however, there are a number of patients who are unaware of their entitlement to drug benefits (1.7%; 95% CI 0.3-4.1). About half of the respondents would like to simplify the procedure for obtaining a prescription for a discounted medicine (40.7%; 95% CI 33.6-48.0), about 15% would like to simplify the procedure for obtaining a medicine (13.6%; 95% CI 9.0-19.0), a quarter of the respondents would like to simplify both of the above procedures (24.3%; 95% CI 18.3-30.9). Only a quarter of respondents do not spend their own money on subsidized medicines, but get them free of charge by prescription (25.4%; 95% CI 19.3-32.1). Half of the respondents have to wait 3 to 14 days for subsidized medicines to arrive at the pharmacy (46.3%; 95% CI 39.0-53.7). Discussion. Despite the increase in costs in absolute terms, many authors point to insufficient funding for medicine benefits. Other problems are a legal conflict that creates duplication of rights to subsidized medicines coverage for citizens included in two lists of beneficiary categories - federal and regional, lack of awareness of patients with diabetes about the right to subsidized medicine coverage. Also, a number of authors point to the untimely holding of auctions, the presence of refusals to issue prescriptions for subsidized drugs, and the untimely provision of medicines according to prescriptions. Conclusions. The results obtained indicate a number of problems in the organization of preferential drug provision for patients with diabetes mellitus and can be used in the development of programs to optimize its organization.