Spain To Monitor High-Prescribing GPs

The Spanish Health Ministry is to monitor the 1,300 doctors across the country who prescribe the most, and is to revise eight million prescriptions through its health service Insalud, reports the Spanish financial daily Cinco Dias.

Insalud will implement monitoring through 42 pharmaceutical inspectors. The move is one of five programs that make up Insalud's pharmacy inspection plan. One of the objectives is to detect irregularities in pensioners' prescriptions, a sector which represents 65% of total prescriptions. Furthermore, the expenditure by this sector of the population on pharmaceutical products has risen 50% in the past 10 years.

The prescriptions to be revised are those improperly or illegally dispensed by pharmacies, and which relate to products that are excluded from reimbursement. Also, committees have been set up to monitor the use of interferon beta and human growth hormone in Spain, and plot the evolution of expenditure for these products.