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30-11-2021

Advise of health insurance funds: medication must be used properly

Iliustracija

More and more medicines are consumed in Lithuania every year. Recent figures show that more than 80 million packs of medicines are sold in the country each year. Last year, however, residents delivered 28.5 tons of obsolete and unnecessary drugs to pharmacies. The number of medicines returned to pharmacies has doubled in a few years.

Specialists from health insurance funds remind that medicines should only be used when they are needed. Unfortunately, there are still cases where medicines are used unnecessarily, improperly or, in other words, irrationally. People spend money unnecessarily and sometimes harm their health and threaten their lives. To avoid this, the principles of rational use of medicines should be followed.

The World Health Organization publishes the following principles for the rational prescribing and use of medicines:

•    the appropriate indication - the decision to prescribe the medicine must be medically justified, the treatment with the medicine must be effective and safe and prescribed in a timely manner;
•    the appropriate medicine - the medicine is chosen for its effectiveness, safety, suitability and availability;
•    the appropriate patient - the medicine is acceptable to the patient when there are no contraindications and the likelihood of side effects is minimal;
•    the appropriate information - the patient should be provided with up-to-date, accurate and clear information about his/her condition and the medicine he has been prescribed;
•    the appropriate monitoring - the expected and unexpected effects of medical treatment must be properly monitored.

Following this principle, the physician responsibly prescribes appropriate and necessary medications to the patient, provides information about them, and does not forget to make a decision on whether to continue or discontinue treatment after evaluating the results of treatment.

Concomitant use of many medications, prescribing without adherence to treatment methods, self-medication, non-adherence to medication, and inappropriate use of antibiotics are the most common examples of irrational use of medication.

The Medicines Committee of the Šiauliai Territorial Health Insurance Fund seeks to rationalize the use of reimbursable medicines. Attempts are made to achieve this by building the competencies of physicians, health care, pharmacy, and other professionals in different fields, and by analyzing the use of reimbursable medications and the effectiveness of patients’ treatment.

It is hereby reminded that medicines must be prescribed and used rationally. Thus, the medication prescribed to the patient must be appropriate to his/her condition and must be administered at the appropriate dose, in a timely manner and for a sufficient period of time that the results of the treatment are achieved in the safest way for the patient's health.

Šiauliai Territorial Health Insurance Fund’s information

The NHIF invites you:

Your questions are welcome by email [email protected] or phone: local (8 5) 232 2222, international +370 5 232 2222.

Last updated: 17-01-2022

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