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The new, fully digitized process for automated reporting of filled prescriptions by pharmacies, which was introduced at the beginning of 2026, has led to the complete elimination of errors in the dispensing partially or fully reimbursed by the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF). Prior to digitization, experts at regional health insurance funds recorded an average of over 3,000 cases of incorrect medication dispensing per month, which led to payment denials and significant financial losses for pharmacies. The process, which was developed and launched by Information Services in collaboration with the NHIF, has effectively eliminated numerous disputes with pharmacists, as well as the subsequent appeal and arbitration procedures.
Currently, all data related to the dispensing of medicines are submitted directly to the National Health Information System (NHIS) and are validated in real time against all NHIF rules and control mechanisms. The process is fully automated and requires no human intervention or additional manual processing. Confirmation of correct dispensing is received while the patient is still at the pharmacy, which guarantees that the medication will be paid for by the Health Insurance Fund.
“The new process for dispensing medications in outpatient care has made Bulgaria the undisputed leader in Europe. Over 90% of packages are reported correctly, which is twice as much as the next country in the ranking,” said Georgi Nedev, Head of “Health Insurance Systems” at Information Services. According to him, digitization saves significant time and costs for both pharmacies and patients, who no longer need to return to the doctor for prescription adjustments. At the same time, the new system enables health authorities to exercise far more effective control over costs and the mechanism for dispensing medications.
With the introduction of automatic reporting, the requirement for pharmacies to submit biweekly reports to the NHIF has been eliminated. Before digitization, NHIF staff manually processed nearly 5,000 reports per month and had to conduct on-site inspections at pharmacies for additional documentation. Now the entire process is fully automated, eliminating any possibility of subjective interference.
Currently, the system is used by over 2,400 pharmacies nationwide. Every month, doctors write more than 3 million prescriptions for medications that are partially or fully covered by the National Health Insurance Fund. The system processes over 2,800 requests per second, and the processing and validation time is just 120 milliseconds.