With the beginning of 2023, the period granted by an ordinance of the Prime Minister (March 2020) which allowed doctors and patients, due to Covid, to take advantage of the so-called "dematerialized prescription" would have ended.
The request from trade and medical associations to extend the deadline was unanimous.
During the Cabinet, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, concerning the Milleproroghe law decree, the rule that allows electronic prescriptions to be sent via sms or email has been extended for a year, until the end of 2023.
The Corriere della Sera, in giving the news, reports the satisfaction of Undersecretary for Health, Marcello Gemmato, who is also in charge of Healthcare of Fratelli d'Italia: «A good provision, which it was right to extend and aims to lighten the attendance load in the medical surgeries of fragile subjects and improve the life of carriers of chronic diseases, who may need a prescription without there being anything to visit them for."
The dematerialized recipe is the electronic version of the traditional red recipe introduced in 2011. To be precise, with the decree of 2 November, of the Ministry of Economy and Finance in concert with the Ministry of Health. Until 2020, however, it was accompanied by a paper memo, to be collected in the doctor's office. The ordinance of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, published in the Official Gazette on 21 March 2020, established the possibility of using alternative tools to the paper memo and provides that, when the electronic prescription is generated by the doctor, the assisted may request the release of the dematerialized memo, i.e. the electronic prescription number. The electronic prescription provides for the complete computerization of the entire life cycle of the traditional paper prescription of the National Health System.
Scotti (Fimmg) declares that "however, the goal in the future should be to create a real dematerialisation of the prescription that can be used directly by simply presenting the electronic health card, as is already the case in some Italian regions such as Veneto".
“It is excellent news, I thank the Minister of Health Orazio Tell us for having taken charge of it and having resolved this problem very quickly which has aroused much concern among doctors and citizens”.
Thus the President of the FNOMCeO, the National Federation of Orders of Surgeons and Dentists, Filippo Rings, comments on the news of the extension, approved this morning by the Council of Ministers, to 31 December 2023 of the possibility for doctors to send the electronic prescription reminder via email or message. He does it in a video that will go in the next edition of FNOMCeO Health news.
“Users will be able to continue to go to pharmacies and public facilities - explains – to collect the medicines or perform the services using their smartphone on which the prescription will be present”.
“Now we will finally have a year to make this regulation structured – concludes – and thus allow doctors and citizens to continue to obtain a service that has certainly been very popular”.
You can watch the video on YouTube or download it with WeTransfer.
