During a meeting of the parliamentary Health Committee, Deputy Health Minister Ilko Getov said that in the past week, the sale of antibiotics has decreased by 25%. The Committee met to hear the Minister of Health, the Bulgarian Drug Agency executive director, and the executive director of Information Services, due to problems with e-prescriptions for antibiotics and for diabetes medications.
Mandatory e-prescriptions for antibiotics and diabetes medications were introduced on October 16, with the aim of reducing drug shortages. Doctors and pharmacists are still debating whether the changes should have been introduced in a different way, and whether and how there should be generic substitution if a medication is missing.
Getov added that before the introduction of e-prescriptions for antibiotics and anti-diabetic drugs, a risk assessment was made, which was published, along with the reasons for the regulatory change. E-prescriptions were introduced in 2021, and this has been enough time for doctors who wish to participate in the system to do so, he added. He noted that the next changes that are about to be introduced provide minimum requirements for medical and pharmacy software to be certified, instead of everyone working with software at their discretion.
The e-prescription system has been operating since December 2021, and so far 44,623 prescriptions have been issued for all types of prescription drugs, Getov pointed out, noting that only 3,384 prescriptions were filled, which is a little over 7%, and this was one of the reasons for making e-prescriptions mandatory only for antibiotics and diabetes medications.
The most e-prescriptions for antibiotics and anti-diabetic drugs were issued in the last week by doctors in Sofia, Plovdiv and Varna, Ivaylo Filipov, director of Information Services AD, pointed out. He added that more than 80% of the prescriptions were filled.
National Health Insurance Fund head Stanimir Mihailov, the leaders of the associations of doctors, pharmacists and healthcare professionals, the Ombudsman, representatives of the National Council on Prices and Reimbursement of Medicinal Products, representatives of patient organizations were also present at the meeting.
After the meeting, Health Minister Hristo Hinkov said that all problems are solvable and there are specific cases that can be solved immediately by amending the ordinance. In the coming days, emergency medical centre workers will be authorized to issue paper prescriptions. All other medical workers who prescribe antibiotics or diabetes medications will do this only electronically, Hinkov underscored.
/NZ/
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