The medical prescriptions they will be alone digital starting from 2025 as a result of the rules set out in Maneuver. Goodbye, therefore, to the red prescriptions reimbursed by the NHS and the white ones that citizens have to pay for out of their own pockets. But some drugs may not be dispensed in a dematerialized manner. Inconveniences for the elderly are already foreseen.
How medical prescriptions change
It is thearticle 54 from the Maneuver 2025 to foresee that from next year “all the prescriptions borne by the National Health Service and the territorial services for health care for naval, maritime and civil aviation personnel and by citizens” will be “carried out in electronic format”.
The choice was made “in order to enhance the monitoring of prescriptive appropriateness as well as guarantee the complete supply of the electronic health record”.
This is nothing new: already in the Covid era, a virtue of necessity was made by experimenting with dematerialized recipes. In the following years several extensions arrived. Virtual recipes will soon become the norm. But, as often happens, there is a loophole provided for by the same article of the Budget Law according to which “the regions, in the exercise of their supervisory and control functions, ensure, through the authorities competent for the territory, the implementation ” of the measurement. Translation: doctors will be able to continue printing old recipes red and white if they deem it necessary.
How the digital recipe works
After the visit, the doctor records the patient and prescription data and then issues an NRE (electronic prescription number) and a paper reminder. With this, the citizen can go to the pharmacy to collect the medicines.
Excluding some drugs
“Not all drugs in blank prescriptions are dematerializable: for example, they are not sleeping pills And tranquilizers“he declared Sergio Bartolettideputy secretary of the Fimmg (Italian Federation of general practitioners). The category of dentists remains excluded from dematerialized prescriptions. “What we ask is that all other medical specialists, including the dentistsmake the recipes digital and do not force us to act as contract printers by physically making the prescriptions for them”, adds Bartoletti.
The criticisms
“The idea of dematerialising all prescriptions, as envisaged by the Maneuver, is premature to say the least and could block doctors’ activities and prevent patients from accessing important medicines and services. As demonstrated by the difficulties we are experiencing in recent days, someone is selling the digital and IT potential that could exist in the future as solutions to current problems”, declares the secretary of the Fimmg, Silvestro Scotti. For Scotti, abolishing paper prescriptions would be a serious mistake: “IT flows have simplified the work of administrations and pharmacists; however, the paper prescription remains an indispensable tool. To date, the law provides that, with the prescription in hand, the citizen can access the drugs and services prescribed by his doctor”.
The risks for the elderly
The secretary of Spi Cgil, Tania Sacchettirepresenting pensioners, warns against the risk of social exclusion for those who, for age reasons, may have difficulty in using dematerialized medical prescriptions: “The law does not provide accompanying measures such as the opening of help desks or services to help the elderly or those who have difficulties with digitalisation. There is thus a risk of introducing a factor of social exclusion”, denounces Sacchetti.
