As of today, an older decision of the Health Insurance Organization comes into force and patients who receive specific non-prescription drugs through the General Health System, will be able to obtain them from the pharmacies in their neighbourhood without having to suffer in the queues of hospital pharmacies every month.
According to relevant information from the HIO to doctors and pharmacies, the implementation of this decision will be gradual and the beginning is made with 8 non-prescription drugs for which may, and depending on the case and the needs of each patient, doctors will have to proceed with the issuance of new prescriptions.
The preparations for which the new regulation begins to apply include Pyridoxine 100 mg in a pack of 100 tablets, Senna BP 7.5 mg in a pack of 60 tablets, Calcium Acetate 950 mg in packs of 100 and 200 tablets and Ubidecaronone 100 mg in a pack of 120 capsules. However, the preparation digoxin 0.0625 mg in a package of 100 tablets will now also be available from neighbourhood pharmacies, which, however, does not belong to the category of over-the-counter drugs.
For digoxin 0.25 mg, the distribution will initially start with packs of 20 tablets, followed by packs of 50 tablets after stocks are exhausted. Accordingly, for Calcium Acetate, the packs of 100 tablets will be available first, and then the packs of 200 tablets.
The distribution of these preparations in private pharmacies will be done through a distribution company, after the issuance of a prescription by the doctors.
According to the HIO, for the new prescriptions, the execution will be carried out from the beginning exclusively by private pharmacies. Special care is taken for existing prescriptions issued for hospital pharmacies.
As the Organization informs, in cases where the product is listed on its own in the prescription, the execution can be done by a private pharmacy or, temporarily, by a hospital pharmacy until stocks are exhausted.
However, when the product is listed on the prescription together with other medicines, the execution must be carried out exclusively by a hospital pharmacy. If there is no stock available, a new prescription is required to be issued in order to be available from a private pharmacy.
The orders of the products will be submitted directly to the company by the private pharmacies, after the issuance of a prescription. That is, the citizen, after the doctor issues his prescription, will ask his pharmacist to secure the medicine.
It is recalled that over-the-counter medicines are administered through the General Health System to specific categories of patients and on the basis of specific criteria. Until today, they were available only from hospital pharmacies and mainly from OKYPY pharmacies. The group of preparations for which the new regulation is implemented from today, will be followed by other non-prescription drugs in the immediate future and citizens will be informed through a relevant announcement by the HIO.
