Deblistering, Umbria is the first to reimburse pharmacies for the service: 13 euros per week of therapy
Pharmacy Scanner – June 24, 2024
Personalized drug packaging, better known as deblistering, becomes part of the services offered by Umbrian pharmacies. The news comes from the legislative decree 498/2024 of May 29th, which updates the regional timetable for the testing of the service pharmacy, extending its activity until the end of the year. Deblistering, in short, enters the program as a “rib” of therapeutic adherence and is aimed at patients suffering from hypertension, COPD or diabetes who take at least three prescription drugs: the service can be offered by the pharmacist to the patient if direct interviews to monitor compliance if the opportunity to customize the dosages emerges, or upon direct reporting from the treating doctor.
The pharmacist, specifies the dgr, acquires from the enrolled patient the authorization to process personal data, the therapeutic scheme and the letter of appointment. Therefore, the patient entrusts the prescribed medicines to the pharmacy which becomes directly responsible for their correct conservation. The drugs, the resolution continues, must be stored in an appropriate container on which the belonging to the patient and the words “Personalization of therapy: Pharmacy testing of services” are clearly indicated; deblistering is permitted for all medicines that are stable even when removed from the original primary packaging.
The rooms in which unpackaging is carried out, according to the Umbrian legislation, must comply with the provisions of the Good Preparation Rules, therefore adequate space is required to allow the preparation, packaging, labeling and control of the medicines. The operator, in particular, proceeds to unpack the original blisters and transfer the drugs into the new containers (trays or sachets) following the indications provided by the patient’s therapeutic scheme. For each blister/sachet, the processing sheet must be completed, signed and kept in the pharmacy. The patient, for his part, signs a form certifying the delivery of personalized packages, while empty packages, leaflets and any leftover medicines must be returned in the original packaging. «The inclusion of deblistering in the regional experimentation» explains the president of Federfarma Umbria, Stefano Monicchi «depends on our proposal which the Health Department has accepted. In this way, pharmacies have the opportunity to further contribute to the adherence and effectiveness of therapies”-
But the real novelty, which makes the Umbrian experiment a first, concerns the remuneration: the resolution, in fact, recognizes pharmacies a compensation of 13 euros for each personalized packaging that covers a week of therapy. «This is the first time that a Region reimburses deblistering in the pharmacy for patients assisted locally» he reminds Pharmacy Scanner Alessandro Iadecola, CEO of Remedio «and with a rate that is anything but negligible: on average just under two euros for each day of therapy, when usually in a private regime one euro per day is the price we suggest».
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Attachment to legislative decree 498/2024 of 29 May
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