The Milleproroghe decree approved by the Government during the Council of Ministers meeting on 9 December, it moved forward by three months the ban on healthcare workers directly providing electronic invoices to patients until March 31, 2025. To date, invoices for healthcare services directed to patients are the only ones exempted from the obligation of electronic invoicing. We continue, therefore, with the hand delivery from the paper invoice.
The reason for the extension is related to a technical-administrative limitation in the Revenue Agency systems, which at the moment do not guarantee compliance with the legislation relating to privacy. It will be necessary to wait for the publication of the provision in the Official Journal to understand its exact scope.
At the moment only the time limit is known, which was made known in the press release issued by Palazzo Chigi: unlike previous years, the extension to prohibition on issuing electronic invoices for healthcare workers ends on March 31st next.
The appeal of the health workers
The government has in fact accepted the requests of the FNOMCeO (National Federation of the Orders of Surgeons and Dentists), whose president Filippo Anelli had sent a note to the Ministry of Health asking for “an authoritative intervention in order to extend for the tax period 2025 the legislation concerning the ban on the issuing of electronic invoicing to natural persons by Doctors and Dentists, in order to allow the management of data on the health of citizens in line with the legislation on protection of personal data”.
With some exceptions, the extension has arrived at the photo finish since 2019, inserted within the Fiscal Decree connected to the Maneuver or the Milleproroghe. In 2023 the extension arrived on December 29th.
The issue has been dragging on since December 2018, when the Privacy Guarantor asked the Revenue Agency “to give suitable instructions to the subjects who provide healthcare services, so that in no case is an electronic invoice issued through the Sdi concerning the provision of a healthcare service, regardless of the sending of the data through the Ts system ”.
Complicating the matter are the invoices issued to patients who objected to the sending of data to the electronic health record.
Exclusions
Only invoices for healthcare services addressed directly to patients fall under the extension. Other forms of invoicing, such as those for collaboration issued by dentists and dental hygienists to practices or those referring to prosthetic devices issued by dental technician laboratories, must be electronic and sent to the Sdi, i.e. the Revenue Agency’s exchange system which receives and physically manages all digital invoices issued.
Other provisions in the Milleproroghe
The Milleproroghe decree addressed a number of other healthcare-related issues, seeking to address the chronic shortage of doctors and nurses in the National Health Service. Until 31 December 2025, public health facilities will, among other things, be able to:
- recruit specialist doctors, starting from the second year, with fixed-term positions;
- assign fixed-term individual assignments (including to postgraduates in the last two years of the course) if it is impossible to use staff already in service;
- recruit graduated and qualified doctors even if they do not have specialization.
The criminal shield for doctors in cases of fraud and gross negligence is then extended by one year.
