Doctors to appeal against limits on drug prescriptions

An appeal is to be launched against the government’s policy of limiting spending on medicines to 2 billion euros this year, the Panhellenic Medical Association said on Wednesday.

Public expenditure on drugs has been slashed since the beginning of the crisis. in 2013 it reached 2.4 billion euros and is due to be reduced again this year. But doctors said they will argue before the Council of State that these reductions are endangering public health and preventing them from practicing medicine properly.

The move comes after a ministerial decision to place limits on the cost of medicines that each doctor can prescribe to patients via the EOPYY healthcare provider each month.

The new rules were introduced after the doctors’ association appealed against a previous decision setting the limit on how many medicines they could prescribe at 80 percent of the previous year’s value.