Prescriptive appropriateness causes sparks in Cagliari, where family doctors and the city's local health authority are in controversy over the recipes based on strontium ranelate that the GPs of the province prescribed in 2011 to male patients. The Healthcare Company has written to the doctors in recent weeks to ask the clinical reasons for the prescription, as the active ingredient is indicated for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis. Provincial Fimmg did not like it and a few days ago replied with a note contesting the form and content of the intervention: to begin with, the union recalls the decision of the EMA last May which had also included "the treatment of male osteoporosis in men at increased risk of fractures" among the indications for strontium ranelate. And then the methods of the recall are unacceptable: «We also accept the suspicion of inappropriateness» explains Umberto Nevisco, provincial secretary of Fimmg Cagliari «to ask for clarifications, the ASL should have invested the district therapeutic commissions with the matter, as foreseen by our national Convention. With these letters sent individually, however, a hunt for the infector is unleashed that we cannot share».
But what the Cagliari GPs like even less are the circumstances of the story: the ASL has not yet made it known how many prescriptions are "contested" and how many family doctors are involved. «And so» continues Nevisco «we don't even know how much the farmaceut portion of the expenditure amounts to! ica attributable to these alleged inappropriateness. We would like to understand this very much, because in this Region the expenditure for drugs that breaks through is hospital spending, not territorial expenditure ». And then, always on the subject of inappropriateness, there is the unresolved question of the red recipe books for NHS doctors: «I'd like to compare the number of visits and services prescribed to see how much is used» concludes the Fimmg secretary «we have the impression that some – hospitals, specialists, university students – appear rather "shy" in using the red recipe book».
June 22, 2012 – DoctorNews
