Filenews 26 April 2024 - by Marilena Panayi
No more misunderstandings between personal doctors and beneficiaries. The Health Insurance Organisation has made changes to the GHS IT system and as of today the software includes the "telephone visit" which doctors will be able to register in cases where they serve their patients by phone for specific issues.
According to the information received yesterday electronically by the personal doctors, "the telephone service will concern only the cases in which there is no physical visit of the beneficiary to the personal doctor's office and when there is a telephone communication between the beneficiary and the personal doctor resulting in the following specific actions:
- Prescribing for drugs
- Issuance of a referral for diagnostic and laboratory tests
- Issuance of a referral for services by other health professionals.
There is no provision for a telephone visit for the purpose of issuing a referral to specialists.
"It is noted that in order to inform the beneficiary by telephone about the results of laboratory or other diagnostic tests, the personal doctor does not need to create a new visit to preview the results. The results are available through the relevant notification in the incoming messages as well as in the medical history of the beneficiary to which the personal doctor has access."
During the first months of implementation of the "telephone service", it "will be counted in the visits taken into account for the calculation of performance indicators for the issuance of referrals by personal doctors but will not count towards visits by age group per calendar year of beneficiaries"
The beneficiaries, "will continue to receive email notifications whenever a visit to the IT system is registered by their personal doctor. This notification will now indicate the type of visit registered and the fact that both the telephone service and the visit outside normal hours do not count towards the visits per calendar year of the beneficiaries".
This development corrects a problem that for almost a year has been causing disruption among GHS beneficiaries and leading, in many cases, to unnecessary tensions between personal doctors and patients.
