What is the medical prescription, what are the types, the methods of use and for which drugs is mandatory. We explains in ‘Rights in Health’ all that is appropriate to know about the prescription.
Here, in summary, the main information useful to citizens, in the in-depth studies dedicated to the various types of use of the medical prescription:
– THE MEDICAL PRESCRIPTION, TYPOLOGIES AND VALIDITY: the medical prescription is a real document that allows the patient to book specialist examinations, diagnostic tests and to be able to withdraw or purchase drugs that require a medical prescription. There are two types of prescription: that of the regional prescription book, which allows the delivery of drugs and services to be paid by the health service; the so-called ‘white’ prescription of the doctor’s personal prescription book, which still allows the provision of services and drugs, at the full expense of the citizen. The medicines, the aids, the exams, the specialist visits, the therapeutic performances can be on the prescription of the health service or on the ‘white’ prescription depending on who prescribes them and the conditions of prescription:
The medical prescription used to prescribe visits and specialized examinations with the health service is valid for one year. When booking, it is necessary to have a valid binding: to count the expiry date, it is necessary to start from the time of the date of issue by the doctor. If on the prescription, the visit or the exam have a priority code different from ‘P’, it is necessary to respect the times, otherwise the priority lapses: a prescription with priority ‘B’ presented for booking more than 15 days from the date of issue, loses priority ‘B’ and is booked as a service with priority ‘D’ (30 days for specialist visits, 60 days for instrumental examinations). A prescription with priority ‘D’ presented over 30 days from the release date, loses priority ‘D’
– THE RED PRESCRIPTION: defined this way for the colored border of the fields that the doctor fills with the necessary data. It can only be filled out by doctors employed by public facilities or affiliated with the national health service and is used for the prescription of a pharmacological therapy, the prescription of a diagnostic examination or a specialist examination by the health service. The use of a red prescription does not allow the delivery to the health service of drugs or parapharmaceutical products not included in the formulations of the regional pharmaceutical handbook, nor of examinations, visits or therapies not included in the Lea or in the provisions of one’s own region.
– THE WHITE PRESCRIPTION : it is the one that the doctor fills out on white paper, on which are reported, however: the name and surname of the doctor; the date; the place; the doctor’s handwritten signature. In this case, the name of the client is not strictly necessary. All prescribed outpatient services, instrumental and laboratory diagnostics, normally related to their branch of specialization and drugs, can be prescribed on a white prescription, which will always be paid by the assisted citizen. For the prescription charged to the health service it is in fact necessary the prescription of the regional prescription book and is valid in all Italian pharmacies.
– THE ELECTRONIC PRESCRIPTION: the red prescription, once printed, is now being replaced with the electronic and dematerialized prescription which, progressively, will be available throughout the national territory. With the electronic prescription, the doctor no longer compiles the red paper prescription, but inserts a request on his computer with: his identification number; patient data; the prescribed drug or test; any exemptions. Once successful, the doctor gives a reminder to take to the pharmacy to pick up the medicines or book the visit. If the dematerialized prescription transmission system is not working, or the system takes longer than 8 seconds to print the reminder, the traditional red prescription is automatically printed. If the reminder is lost, unlike the paper prescription, you can still buy the drug because the prescription is recorded in the databases, accessible by all pharmacies. While waiting for the electronic prescription to be adopted everywhere, the old rules still apply to paper prescriptions.
Unlike the paper prescription, the electronic prescription allows you to collect drugs in any region other than your own without paying the price of the drug, but only the ticket of your region of residence and any difference with respect to the reference price of the generic plus low cost. Not all prescriptions can be dematerialized today and the red prescription is still indispensable for: oxygen; narcotic drugs; psychotropic substances; medications distributed on behalf; drugs that require an Aifa treatment plan; drugs prescribed at the patient’s home or in RSA.
