It is no mystery that substitution in the pharmacy continues to create a lot of stomach aches among family doctors. However, the winds of war coming from Veneto are making news, where the regional representation of Fimmg (the most representative of the general practice acronyms) threatens to boycott the substitutability if the Region and Federfarma do not start a confrontation with the union by the end of the month. As many will recall, the Fimmg Veneto had already had the opportunity to express itself on the matter last November, with an online survey which showed that according to the doctors' 84% the prescribed drug cannot be changed. Now the request for a negotiation table between generalists, owners and the regional administration, with the aim - as Fimmg itself writes in a circular - of "regaining the prescriptive power on the drug eroded over time by our passivity and by the commercial activism of pharmacists". What if the table is not convened on time? Then the boycott would be triggered: by the end of the month the practice management software most commonly used by doctors should receive a change thanks to which the wording "non-replaceable" can be selected directly from the computer. In the event that Fimmg Veneto's request remains unheeded, from 1 April the union doctors would begin to put this writing on all the recipes produced, without any exceptions. "If applied on a large scale" writes Fimmg again "this action can actually upset the drug market, bringing it back under our full control with a single simple act, to the advantage of our patients who undergo continuous changes in therapy".
Pharmacist33 – 15 March 2011
