Family doctors are ready to commit themselves to achieving the spending targets set by the Region for this year. But it is also necessary that the other prescribers do their part. This is the message that tomorrow the Fimmg will deliver to the Tuscan administrators in the meeting scheduled for the Health Department. The theme of the appointment will be the measures dictated by the 2012 Budget law regarding medicines: this year the overall expenditure (territorial plus hospital) will have to drop by 4% compared to 2011 and for this reason the health authorities have already been given the order to increase the "targets" of consumption of equivalents. In cascade this will mean more "off patent" prescriptions for family doctors and hence the warning from Fimmg. «For some time now, the Tuscan MMGs have embraced the cause of the equivalent» explains Vittorio Boscherini [photo below], regional secretary of the union "but if the same participation does not come from the other components of the system, it will be difficult to achieve the objectives". The reference is, of course, to hospital and university doctors. «I'll give you a concrete example» continues Boscherini «if the Region says that sartans are to be used in the second instance and that unless there are contraindications, precedence should be given to ace inhibitors, it is logical to expect that the first ones are mainly prescribed by family doctors responsible for monitoring the therapy. Instead the opposite is true: in my ASL, the 40% of sartans are prescribed by the hospital».
The Fimmg's request, in essence, is that the Region make sure that everyone row with the same vigor: «In 2011» Boscherini again quotes «the overall percentage of equivalents prescribed by the Mmg reached 64%; hospitals the 56%, university students the 53%. The target set by the Region was the 65%: we just missed it, the others stopped long before that. If you don't change, you're not going anywhere." The councilor is warned.
February 13, 2012 – DoctorNews
