The mother of a boy to whom the doctor at the Podgorica Health Center on Monday, due to a power outage, prescribed therapy manually, and not electronically, claims that she could not fulfill the prescription at Montefarm's pharmacy on St. Peter Cetinjski Boulevard, but instead paid for the medicine - an antibiotic.
"Montefarm" told "Vijesta" that this is possible, among other things, if there was no electricity in the pharmacy, but the boy's mother claims that this was not the case when she was in the pharmacy.
"I could afford to buy medicine, but someone who can't, should buy medicine in such a situation," she told the newsroom.
"Montefarm" said that electronic and handwritten prescriptions can be implemented in their pharmacies.
"And such a practice has been present for many years, i.e. since the introduction of electronic prescriptions in 2017. The largest number of prescriptions implemented in our pharmacies are precisely electronic, while the so-called handwritten prescriptions in circulation only for some drugs and medical devices, in accordance with the existing Rulebook on the method of prescribing and dispensing drugs", said Montefarma.
They also add that, in exceptional situations, when there is an interruption in the electrical supply or certain disturbances in the existing information system in health centers, the doctor prescribes therapy to the patient based on a handwritten prescription.
"Which can be realized in our pharmacies, but with certain exceptions. However, we emphasize that drugs from the so-called supplemental list of drugs, where the patient partially participates in the price of the drug, can only be prescribed with an electronic prescription, because the information system does not recognize this type of drug if it is prescribed 'manually', and therefore cannot be pick up from the pharmacy. When it comes to our pharmacies, if at that moment there is a power outage or disturbances in the information system, our pharmacists cannot dispense the prescribed medicine on a handwritten prescription, because there is no possibility of checking the data", said Montefarma and added that their information system is connected to the system of the Health Insurance Fund, and "therefore, systemically, it is not possible to subsequently enter a prescription".
"The so-called the written prescription contains a series of data, the bar code of the prescription, the bar code of the doctor, the patient's identification number, the type of insurance (whether it pays a co-payment or not), then the bar code of the medicine is entered, which automatically loads the batch and the deadline, the dispensed quantity is entered, the date of issue and the signature of the pharmacist who dispenses the medicine. Entering these recipes is not simple, and in the series of data that needs to be entered, there is a risk that some of them are not accurately entered, and the system does not recognize them with subsequent entry.
Therefore, when the patient takes the medicine, if the entry of this prescription is not carried out in his presence, subsequent entry is almost impossible, except at the risk and responsibility of our pharmacists, but even then we meet citizens, especially if it is a question of therapy for some acute diseases (antibiotics, analgesics, antipyretics...)", they said from "Montefarm".
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