However, the annual recipes remain. The Minister of Health has changed his mind on this matter.

Until recently, the Ministry of Health said that it plans to cancel annual prescriptions. The change was intended to place more emphasis on monitoring the patient’s condition while taking medications, as well as to address the misunderstandings that result from this way of dispensing prescriptions. Now it turns out that a year ago will not be canceled.
In addition to the confusion associated with the planned elimination of annual prescriptions, the Ministry of Health has introduced another modification - we are talking about limiting the issuance of electronic prescriptions.

However, annual prescriptions remain - decision of the Minister of Health

On Thursday (July 6, 2023), Adam Nedzielski announced on Twitter that he has changed his decision on annual recipes. “I have decided to leave the annual prescription in the reimbursement act,” the Minister of Health wrote, saying that this decision was made after consultation with the Deputy Minister of Health Maciej Milkowski, the leadership of the ministry, as well as after discussion with the national family medicine consultant Agnieszka Mastalerz-Migas , Vice President of the Zelonogorsk Agreement Tomasz Zielinski and Minister of Digitalization Janusz Cieszynski. “Thank you for a very informative dialogue,” Adam Nedzielski added.

Why did the Ministry of Health want to cancel annual prescriptions?

The planned change must have been due to a different method of calculating the amount of drug to be dispensed to the patient after “subtracting” it from the prescription. This, however, has been the source of many misunderstandings due to various interpretations of the provisions. The draft amendments to the Law on the Reimbursement of Expenses for Medicines, Foods for Special Food Purposes, Medical Devices and Certain Other Acts include a proposal to halve the number of prescribed drugs per prescription. Therefore, it was a signal that the Ministry of Health plans to abandon annual prescriptions - the plans include the possibility of issuing only such prescriptions, in which the supply of the drug is enough for the patient to use it for six months. .

This solution was primarily intended to provide better and more efficient monitoring of the patient’s health. Another argument was the stability of the drug supply system and the exclusion of a situation where a patient buys a supply of medicines for the whole year, which may subsequently run out for other people. According to the announced changes, instead of an annual prescription, the doctor had to prescribe one drug at the same time for several prescriptions for up to 180 days.

Criticism of canceling annual prescriptions

Doctors were critical of the idea of ​​abolishing annual prescriptions, emphasizing that such a decision would lead, among other things, to the need for patients to visit outpatient clinics more often, and thus to take a place in the queue for people who, for example, need more help. Doctors emphasize that an annual prescription is a reasonable solution for patients with a chronic disease when a treatment plan is already in place.

Agnieszka Mastalers-Migas, national consultant in the field of family medicine, also expressed her opinion on this issue in an interview with RMF FM: “The vote to keep the annual prescription was not only mine, but also representatives of the environment, especially family doctors. She also added that such prescriptions are issued to chronic patients: “We write quite a lot of such prescriptions. This is a very convenient option, suitable for patients who are on chronic treatment but have good disease control and do not require very frequent checkups. The yearly prescription gives them a sense of security.”