Bulgarian National Council on Prices and Reimbursement of Medicinal Products
Pursuant to the legislation of the Republic of Bulgaria, National Council on Prices and Reimbursement of Medicinal Products (NCPRMP) regulates and registers the prices of medicinal products (MP) by carrying checks in 17 reference member-states.
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Summary
Pursuant to the legislation of the Republic of Bulgaria, National Council on Prices and Reimbursement of Medicinal Products (NCPRMP) regulates and registers the prices of medicinal products (MP) by carrying checks in 17 reference member-states. As a result of the obtained information NCPRMP keeps public register of prices of MPs both in the Positive Drug List (reimbursement list) and for free sale. Public registers are used by pharmaceutical companies, business organisations, government institutions (Ministry of Health, the National reimbursement fund, hospitals, pharmacies, etc.) as well as citizens. As a result of the implementation of the information system, companies do not provide re-information about registered medicinal products that are already available in the system.
| URL | NCPR |
|---|---|
| Focus | Citizens Business Government |
| Start date | 1 Apr 2014 |
| Domain | Health |
| Scope | National/Federal |
| Country | Bulgaria |
| Nature and status of project | Rolled Out |
| Is the OOP case/enabler mandatory? | Mandatory |
Enabling assets or components
Political commitment
Title of the document:
- STRATEGY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF E-GOVERNMENT IN THE REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA 2014 -2020
Type of commitment:
- STRATEGY, APPROVED BY GOVERNMENT
URL:
- https://e-gov.bg/en/41
Explanation:
- Strategic targets: One-time data collection for citizens and companies and multiple use of such;
Legal interoperability
Title of the document:
- Strategy "Europe -2020", Framework of WHO for policies “Health - 2020" and the Concept “Goals for Health” developed on its basis by the Ministry of Health. The Ordinance of the council of Ministers “Partnership for Health”. National plan for the annual priorities of the development of Bulgaria, April 2013 - December 2020.
- LAW ON ELECTRONIC GOVERNMENT and its by-laws.
URL:
- http://www.nsi.bg/census2011/PDOCS2/Law_on_electronic_governance_en.pdf
Explanation:
- National eHealth Strategy 2016 - 2020 and Roadmap for its implementation. The e-Health sector (2016-2020) sectoral strategy was set up by the Ministry of Health and aims to further develop a healthcare strategy to build and implement policies for the implementation of eHealth. The policy strategy defines the approach, principles and technical solutions for the implementation of the information service in the healthcare sector, part of which is its medicinal policy. The goal of the strategy is to achieve high-quality public services for citizens and businesses, increase efficiency and transparent governance. The eHealth Roadmap includes the development and deployment of electronic registers in the Healthcare sector, including a register of medicinal products in human medicine, with unique identification introduced. In execution of the strategy document registers of the ceiling prices of the medicinal products, which are included and not included in the reimbursement lists of the Republic of Bulgaria, have been created. Electronic public services are created with the option of on-line registration and checking. The implemented public registers of the NCPRMP provide for the possibility of one-time collection and multiple use of data, respecting the principle of open data.
In Bulgarian legislation, and in particular in the Law on Electronic Governance, the principle of the one-time collection of data introduced by the provision of Art. 2. (1) Administrative bodies, public officials and public service organizations cannot require citizens or organizations to present or prove the data already collected or created but must collect them ex officio from the primary administrator of the data.
(2) The primary data controller shall be an administrative body that by law collects or creates data for a citizen or organization for the first time and modifies or deletes such data. It provides citizens and organizations with access to all the information gathered for them.
Data handling / data exchange
Type of data sharing
Actual data
Data handler
| Stakeholder name | Stakeholder type |
|---|---|
Business | Database owner |
| Business | Database consumer |
| Business | Database provider |
| Citizen | Database consumer |
| Government | Database consumer |
Architecture
Ensured access to the registers of NCPRMP via Internet both by direct search and review of data in the registers via the public web-interface, as well as by automated mode in system to system via web services. For the latter, the parties concerned are being provided by WSDL definition of service.
Benefits for involved actors
As a Result of the implementation of the information system time is saved for the business and improves the access of the citizens to the information. It improves the quality of the data. Realization of the access to public registers of prices of medicinal products will facilitate both citizens and business and, besides, huge savings of indirect expenses will be realized and greater transparency will be provided relating to spending public funds for medicinal products. Through the web-based service this information is used by various users and the repeated submission to NCPRMP is not necessary:
- Benefit for the citizens
Any citizen who is a client of a pharmacy and who doubts whether the price of a medicinal product is too high, can now check by his/her mobile telephone the ceiling of the respective medicinal product on the web-site of the Council. A decisive factor for the implementation of the project by NCPRMP is the effective and purposeful spending the funds provided under Operating Programmе “Administrative Capacity", funded by monies of the European union through the European Social Fund.
Electronic public registers are available to everybody who has internet access. Typing the name of a MP we can receive all data that are kept in the public registers, such as: information is this product fully or partially reimbursed by NHIF and if yes – how much are we to pay the pharmacy including the total percentage of payment. In case medicinal product is payable by NHIF, the cheapest product in the respective group shall be marked by a special colour. So any citizen would easily be oriented about the lowest price of provided that he/she would accept a more expensive alternative or co-payment had increased, he/she can ask the doctor to change the medicinal product with a less expensive.
Citizens can also check: medicines for a specific disease, specific dosage. Pharmacological group, price breakdown, when has been the last change of the price of a certain medicine, etc.
On the web site there is also a service for people in inequity – reading by an electronic reader and enlargement of font.
- Benefits for the business:
The Council provides 15 types of electronic services to the pharmaceutical companies that register their medicinal products in Bulgaria. Opportunity for electronic submission and on-line verification of the status of administrative services, the time of business which exceptionally saves the time of business.
- About public benefit
NCPRMP by its activity has economized public funds to a considerable amount. CPRMP performs checks of saved data of MPs in real time (on-line) provided by government institutions, patient organisations, narrow medical specialists and experts and last but not least - citizens. Access to the electronic services can be done only by a qualified electronic signature (QES), which guarantees the legitimacy of the information. The data from the web-service are in read-only format where the use is allowed by IP address. Submission of applications directly online helps reduce errors during data transfer from a paper application into the Council’s system and improves data quality. The system has installed algorithms for internal logical checks which additionally help avoid human errors and that, on its turn improves quality.
Lessons learned
Automate and improve the exchange of information between NCPRMP and other institutions as a result of the successfully implemented system and the once-only principle. Development of own information systems by other institutions (e.g. Ministry of Health and National health
insurance fund), which use in real time the already collected information from NCPRMP.
Source: https://scoop4c.eu/cases/bulgarian-national-council-prices-and-reimbursement-medicinal-products
Disclaimer: Please note that this article is a result of the SCOOP4C Pilot Project, not an application of a CEF Building Block.