Patients of obras sociales and prepaid with chronic illnesses who had been using prescriptions for medicines made on paper and sent as a photo through electronic means, either by email or via Whatsappthey will be able to continue doing so until February 28, as confirmed by the Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Health, Sonia Tarragona.
It is that the health portfolio established an exception for these patients yesterday after Resolution No. 3622/2022 last Monday, which generally invalidated the presentation at the pharmacy of prescriptions made on paper by medical professionals and sent as photos or scans.
“It is to avoid interrupting treatments and at vacation times when it is not easy to find shifts with health professionals, extend the possibility of dispensing medications, exclusively for those who have been using and for chronic treatments”explained the official this morning when speaking with the accredited press at Casa Rosada.
Tarragona indicated that, from the Health portfolio, the use of electronic and digital prescriptions is encouraged, and reiterated that The modality that will cease to be valid is the one that was exceptionally enabled at the beginning of the pandemic, which consisted of sending a photo of a “paper recipe” via WhatsApp or email.
However, this measure will not reach patients with chronic diseases, who will be able to continue using this format until the end of next February.
“What the Ministry has just announced through the resolution that was published this week is that the photos of the recipes, which are not digital recipes, are no longer valid. All the modalities of digital and electronic recipes that are coming are still valid using it in most of the provinces, in all public financiers, in the public sector, and in the majority of social security financiers”, Tarragona explained about the measure announced this week.
The recipe-photo modality was “installed as an exception, for those who could not mobilize during social, preventive and mandatory isolation” established in the most acute phase of the pandemic, he indicated.
The measure, adopted in consensus with the Ministers of Health of the 24 jurisdictions, coincided with the verification of various irregularities, including the purchase of medicines in several pharmacies with the same photo prescription and even prescriptions with digitally doctored dates.
For his part, Ricardo Pesenti, head of the Argentine Pharmaceutical Confederation, said that this entity sees “the end of this modality with good eyes.”
“The population that was using it was very small and we were seeing deviations and many complications, both administrative and from the point of view of access to medicines safely. It is necessary to advance in digital prescription and electronic prescription, which are not a photo” , estimated.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health explained that Physicians who attend privately or through a prepaid medicine company that does not have an electronic system, must re-prescribe through the traditional paper prescription and it will be received without problems at the corresponding pharmacy.
