Filenews 20 January 2026 - by Marilena Panayi
The Health Insurance Organization is preparing to put an end to the oral and public, in many cases, information of the GHS health service providers with our personal data (name, identity card and date of birth), in order to put an end to the occasional protests of citizens/beneficiaries of the GHS who report their exposure to various risks due to this practice.
Relevant complaints have been recorded since the implementation of the GHS until today and by the Patients' Rights Observatory and the case of a citizen who last month requested the intervention of the Cyprus Federation of Patients' Associations, in order to request an examination of the issue by the Commissioner for Personal Data Protection. As this citizen stated in his complaint, the data disclosed by GHS beneficiaries in waiting rooms and pharmacies in the presence of other, unknown to them, "can be used by malicious people to commit electronic crimes, with unpredictable consequences".
Pointing out that "citizens, in any case, can easily avoid verbally informing providers, in this case pharmacists, by simply giving them their identity/residency card where all the necessary information is listed", the competent director of the HIO, Marios Tziakouris, told "F" that "at the moment we are working on three different ways, one of which, is even at an advanced stage for its implementation."
The Organization, he explained, is preparing to introduce a possibility in the beneficiary's file (Open Referrals section), where each recipe will have a clearly visible barcode or QR code. In this way, the pharmacist will be able to match (scan) the code and gain access to the beneficiary's prescription with the possibility, of course, to execute it.
"In order for this practice to be possible, of course, the beneficiaries must first have activated their electronic file in the IT system, which they must have done years ago and navigate the Beneficiary Portal through their mobile phone."
In the first phase, said Mr. Tziakouris, "scanning the barcode or QR code will give access to a prescription, so if there is another recipe to be executed, the process must be repeated." This process, he noted, "is already in the process of being implemented and has almost been completed. Citizens, of course, will be informed about this when the time comes and they will be given all the instructions they need in order to be able to use this function when executing their prescriptions."
In parallel with this process, he added, "we are in contact with the Deputy Ministry of Innovation in order to use the "Digital Citizen" as the means to identify the beneficiary and find their recipes. Through the use of the identity card registered in the "Digital Citizen", the pharmacist will gain access to all the "open" prescriptions of the beneficiary." Direct access to all "open" prescriptions will facilitate even more, however, this is something that will take some time to implement", said the director of the HIO for this, the Organization is proceeding with the implementation of the possibility of using the barcode, through the Beneficiary Portal.
Finally, it is known that the process of preparing an application for mobile phones by the competent National eHealth Committee is underway. With the operation of this application, beneficiaries and GHS providers will gain access, in addition to prescriptions for medicines, to other health information.
Concluding, however, Mr. Tziakouris stressed that "any digitization that is implemented does not abolish the practice that is currently followed. After all, there are also citizens, beneficiaries of the GHS who cannot easily handle technology. Therefore, and then it will be possible to execute prescriptions by presenting the identity card to the pharmacist. After all, the identification of the beneficiary for whom a prescription is executed is imperative to be done now. There is, of course, the possibility of reporting to the pharmacist the number of the prescription he wishes to execute which he can find through the Beneficiary Portal, this process of course does not practically facilitate the citizen."
