Shared e-prescription is now operational. Medicines from different pharmacies? Both yes and no
Patients have a chance to breathe. Instead of being tied to one pharmacy, e-prescriptions can now be filled in several locations. The system updates data in real time.
Poles have been waiting six years for the possibility of purchasing one medicine from one prescription in several pharmacies – from 2020, i.e. from the date of introduction of electronic prescriptions.
Since July, the system allows you to purchase subsequent packages of the drug from the same prescription (e.g. an annual prescription) at another facility without the need to return to the pharmacy where the prescription was started. But the service is not available in every pharmacy!
One package of medicine here, another one there. Pharmacies in the queue for system updates
Poles can use the simplified procedure in just 6.5 thousand. pharmacies all over Poland. As explained by the Ministry of Health, another 700 facilities are waiting in line to consider the application. It turns out that the new service is not obligatory, but voluntary. And unfortunately, it requires pharmacy software integration. This is why it is not available automatically in every branch.
The Ministry of Health estimates that nearly 60 percent pharmacies in the country, however, patients will be able to use the partial fulfillment of e-prescriptions in July. The current list of pharmacies integrated with the system can be found on the government website patient.gov.pl.
How exactly does it work? – If we have several packages of the drug listed, we can get the first package in one pharmacy and the next one in another – explained Deputy Minister of Health Katarzyna Kacperczyk.
Price tourism to pharmacies. Because why buy more expensive?
Pharmacists are much less optimistic about this matter. Making things easier for patients is making things harder for pharmacies. Pharmacists fear that settling partially dispensed drugs in different facilities may result in inconsistencies in the system and errors in dispensing doses, which creates the risk of claims. Pharmacists are afraid of conflicts with patients.
Moreover, pharmacies will be financially responsible for incorrect calculations and medicines issued to patients from different pharmacies.
Another problem is maintaining appropriate stock levels in case a patient buys, for example, two out of four prescribed drug packages in one pharmacy and wants to buy the rest in another. The Ministry reassures that from now on, pharmacies are not obliged to provide patients with subsequent packages of the drug throughout the entire prescription period. So what do pharmacists care about? To put it simply, a shared e-prescription allows Poles to use the so-called price tourism. The pharmacy where the patient starts filling the prescription has lost the guarantee that he will buy the remaining packages of the given medicine.
If a patient finds the same medicine at a lower price in another pharmacy, he or she will buy it there.
