Due to the new system of reimbursable medicines, the patient often has to wait even 24 hours a day / Article / LSM.lv

Within a few months, the new state procedure for prescribing reimbursable medicines has allowed patients save more than € 2 million already, but the price of 300 drugs has dropped. However, there is no shortage of problems – pharmacists point out that often the patient has to wait up to a day to receive the necessary medicine at all. –

Absolutely not everyone is at peace with the new order.

“I’ve already tried the active ingredient, I don’t help it, I don’t like it. And so I ask the doctor to write the usual one. I don’t need cheaper, I need better! ” stressed the patient Carmen.

If a patient develops health problems or side effects, the doctor is entitled to prescribe the usual medicine.

However, in most or 90% of cases, doctors have prescribed the active substance. Pharmacists often face the fact that there is no cheaper medicine.

“The biggest disadvantage of the new system is that sometimes there is no medicine. Then call the wholesaler and wait. Hoping to get the remaining packaging. And sometimes it takes a day, ”admitted pharmacist Una Strode.

“If the wholesaler doesn’t give, then you have to report to the Health Inspectorate, thank god it wasn’t!” said Strode.

Pharmacists would like a better flow of information in the system.

The State Agency of Medicines explains that the system is constantly being improved and that any shortcomings observed by pharmacists are being addressed. The Register of Medicines has already been significantly improved and work on the speed of data update is continuing.

“We set up a system to see in which wholesaler how many packages are available. There was also a shortcoming that the information about the supply interruption appears after several days, ”admitted Dita Okmane, Head of the Public Relations Department of the State Agency of Medicines.

“We introduced a system when the register of medicines immediately shows which medicines are the cheapest, which can be dispensed if the cheapest ones are not available,” Okmane added.

CONTEXT:

To prevent the situation that residents overpay for state-reimbursed medicines, from this year April 1 The procedure for prescribing state reimbursable medicines has been changed – the doctor now indicates the name of the active substance instead of a specific medicine in the prescription, while pharmacies dispense the cheapest reimbursable medicines from medicines with the same effect, which are equally high quality, effective and safe.

The system will be evaluated and improvements will take place at least a year after its implementation.

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