Changes in prescribing e-prescriptions are a return to the past, the operation of ambulances will be fundamentally disrupted. This was stated at the Friday press conference by a member of the opposition party SaS a member of the National Council (NR) of the SR Tomáš Szalay and chairman of the SaS Branislav Gröhling. One solution, according to Szalaya, is to correct the error in the law as quickly as possible.
“Why can’t we meet in the middle of January and correct this stupid mistake of the government in a shortened legislative procedure?” asks Szalay, a member of the NR SR Health Care Committee. It also proposes that drugs that are not covered by public health insurance be temporarily reimbursed at the rate of one cent per drug. “As soon as the medicine is covered by the public health insurance with at least one cent, it has to go through eRecept, and we have solved the problem at least for contracted doctors who prescribe such medicines,” he explained.
According to Szalaya, a third solution could be to temporarily waive the bureaucratic requirements of paper prescriptions, such as the specific form or color of the serial number that doctors must maintain. “Let’s say three months they can push it on any A5. Let’s not make it a bureaucratic hell,” he noted. Szalay emphasized that the electronic prescribing of medicines significantly saved the time of both the patient and the doctor. He also pointed out that a paper prescription may not get into the health database, thereby losing information about what drugs the patient is taking and whether there is a risk of interaction between them.
Gröhling added that while the whole world is modernizing, only Slovakia is returning to the past under the government of Robert Fico (Smer-SD). “We will again ask our partners to go ahead with the recall of this government, with a vote of no confidence,” he clarified.
An amendment to the Act on the National Health Information System entered into force in January. For some medicines, the possibility of issuing an e-prescription has disappeared. These are, for example, medicines fully paid for by the patient. The Ministry of Health (MOH) of the Slovak Republic explained that with regard to the technical-legislative necessity of the adjustment, it was necessary to respect the law of the European Union regarding the protection of personal data in connection with the electronic prescription service (eRecipe). It declared that it was dealing with the situation to reduce the impact on the public as soon as possible.
The Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic, health insurance companies and the National Center for Health Information (NCZI) have agreed that at the latest by the end of March, they will initiate a legislative process to correct the changes in prescribing e-prescriptions.
