Restrictions on drug prescriptions and the use of specialist services. These are some of the points of the new pact-contract signed between the unions of family doctors (Fimmg, Snami, Smi) and the Usl 1 Dolomiti.
The contract, valid for 2018 only, provides for some rationalizations also dictated by the Region and the Ministry of Health. In a nutshell, with this contract, family doctors undertake to appropriately prescribe specialist visits and medicines and to encourage patients' adherence to screening and flu vaccination. If all these objectives are achieved during the year, doctors will receive a bonus of 4.45 euros per patient.
"This is the first pact-contract of the USL 1 Dolomiti, which takes into account the objectives set by the Region and the Ministry", explains Gianluca Romano, manager of the USL Conventions office. "The document intends to involve primary care doctors, who, on some items, are an important lever".
If the pact is based on national and Veneto regulations and resolutions, the contract precisely details the macro-objectives to be achieved. Every single professional is free to adhere to the document or not; if it does, it will have to comply with the terms of the agreement and undertake to achieve the objectives, against payment of a fee.
The main points of the contract include the appropriateness of pharmaceutical prescriptions and the maintenance of per capita pharmaceutical expenditure within the regional objectives, in addition to encouraging the use of equivalent medicines. Therefore, these are choices that aim at saving pharmaceutical costs in general. Whoever observes these criteria will receive €0.30 per patient.
"We have also decided to involve family doctors in the incentive campaign for flu vaccinations (for these the doctor will receive 0.35 euros per patient) and colorectal, mammography and cytology screenings (0.75 euros per patient overall)" , they say from the health company.
As far as specialist studies are concerned, the contract specifies that «professionals, always with a view to the diagnostic process, must proceed with the prioritization and clinical motivation of all specialist services in line with the activated protocols, collaborating in the drafting of diagnostic guidelines in problematic outpatient activities. In short, the prescriptions for visits or clinical investigations will have to respond to actual needs, always keeping an eye on waiting lists.
To implement these virtuous behaviors on the part of doctors, the Local Health Authority is also committed to organizing training courses.
The trade unions that signed it welcome this agreement. «This year we had to abide by the stringent rules imposed on us by the Region, so we didn't have much room for action. Despite these rationalizations, faced with an increasingly elderly, multi-problem and complex patient, our task remains to treat him appropriately», comments Fabio Bortot of Fimmg. (source Corriere delle Alpi)
FIMMG – Published on Thursday, February 22, 2018
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