The Nationwide Group for Healthcare Companies Provision (EOPYY) is increasing its house supply service for high-cost medicines, aiming for gradual implementation by Might 2025 and full operation by the tip of June.
The house supply of high-cost medicines started a yr in the past for particular affected person classes. Nonetheless, authorities deemed it needed to increase the service to all eligible beneficiaries.
“EOPYY is extending this service, supplied for the primary time by a European insurance coverage supplier, to all sufferers who want to, at completely no price,” the Chairwoman of the Board of Administrators of EOPYY advised Euractiv.
Digital, sooner and greener
The method will probably be totally digital by way of a devoted e-platform. For sufferers unfamiliar with know-how, EOPYY workers will help each on the organisation’s pharmacies and thru its new name centre.
The brand new centralised name centre and a unified request administration system will launch on 5 March. A press release notes that “the brand new platform goals to reinforce service high quality and facilitate citizen communication with the organisation relating to healthcare-related issues.”
“We goal to repeatedly enhance the service for sufferers with continual ailments, mobility issues, or those that stay in areas with out autonomous EOPYY pharmacies, decreasing lengthy ready instances,” Karpodini advised Euractiv.
Digitalising the method additionally reduces forms and minimises the carbon footprint by decreasing transportation and packaging waste for temperature-sensitive medication.
“We additionally need to guarantee sooner and safer administration and supply of medicines at house, in accordance with European pointers and based mostly on GDP (Good Distribution Practices),” the Head of EOPYY defined.
EOPYY estimates that roughly 125,000 sufferers may very well be eligible for the service, with 72,000 presently filling prescriptions at pharmacies in Athens and Thessaloniki – figures highlighting the initiative’s significance.
Amongst these sufferers, 41% (29,500 insured individuals) obtain medicines for autoimmune ailments (equivalent to rheumatoid arthritis, plaque psoriasis, and Crohn’s illness) and supportive chemotherapy medication (erythropoietin and white cell development elements).
EOPYY totally covers the price of the service, with implementation set to start in Might 2025 and full rollout by the tip of June.
Pharmacies on standby
It stays unclear whether or not high-cost medicines will ultimately grow to be out there by group pharmacies.
Final January, following a gathering with the Panhellenic Pharmacy Affiliation and representatives of pharmaceutical corporations, the Minister of Well being said {that a} basic framework had been agreed upon for permitting some prescriptions presently crammed by EOPYY pharmacies to be transferred to personal pharmacies, ought to the affected person select to take action.
“We’re not but prepared to supply a precise timeline, as an inside authorities dialogue is required to correctly assess the prices beforehand,” the minister famous.
Discussions round personal pharmacies distributing high-cost medicines reportedly embody the potential for a dishing out price for pharmacists, estimated at €20 per prescription.
Nonetheless, talks on the matter don’t seem to have concluded. Ministry of Well being sources point out that the difficulty stays underneath evaluation, and any ultimate resolution will come after the expanded house supply service for high-cost medicines by EOPYY is totally applied.
[Edited by Brian Maguire]