Galery

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- Chemists in Piraeus said that patients having prescriptions issued by five health insurance funds owing them money will pay cash for the drugs...
 
- They do not accept in Piraeus prescriptions issued by the organization for treatment of employees insured in the public sector and by other insurance funds that do not pay their debts to pharmacists within the legal frameworks. And this is a matter of survival for Greek pharmacies.  

- Yes, but what will happen to the people insured by these health funds irregular in their payments. Won’t they get their meds?

- We are talking about medicines prescribed by several small health insurance funds which do not pay. We take the side of health insured and therefore the Greek society is behind us and supports us. We try to protect pharmacies because they are not commercial stores and medicines are not commercial goods. They are social good that should be available to the Greek citizens. We want to protect the interests of health insured but also the state's economy, which by increasing the number of pharmacies will also increase pharmaceutical costs. We try to protect the health insurance funds. Only we have made concrete proposals to the government - and the price decrease was proposed by us. This has significantly reduced our profits and turnover. We want to help but we do not want to be ruined. Because medicines are only 7% of the health care costs of the government. But we have not seen the Minister to slave away for the remaining 93% which he lacks.  

- What do completely free opening hours mean for pharmacies?
 
- We were told that we must work six days a week as many hours as we want – there are no restrictions. Given that each pharmacy is required to be on duty sometimes during the day when the rest are closed and sometimes to be on night duty.

- Have all health insurance funds started to issue electronic prescriptions? When will this happen?