Healthcare fund able to monitor drug prescriptions in real time
In a first for Greece, the National Organization for Healthcare Provision (EOPYY), the country?s main health fund, is able to monitor in real time the prescriptions that are issued by its doctors and pinpoint any suspicious activity.
Until Monday, EOPPY, which was created by the merger of several funds last year, only received a bimonthly report from its electronic prescription system. From now on, officials will be able to see prescriptions, which doctor issued them and how much they cost EOPYY as they are entered into the system. If a doctor is issuing prescriptions more frequently than normal or if the value of the drugs is above average, the cases will be flagged.
?The monitoring of prescriptions in real time will lead to the streamlining of medicine costs,? said Alternate Health Minister Marios Salmas. Currently, some 200,000-250,000 prescriptions are issued per day. The Health Ministry aims to have all EOPPY doctors, as opposed to just over half now, using the electronic system by the beginning of September.
