Fake prescriptions in Bosnia-Herzegovina's canton record

In the last eight years, abuse of prescriptions has been recorded in four out of 10 cantons of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina FBiH Prescriptions for medicines are issued without their knowledge to patients who do not use them. The system for issuing medical prescriptions is digitized and this is done electronically.

A pharmacist can issue a prescription drug only with an inspection of a health card of the patient in whose name the prescription is written, according to the law. During such abuses, pharmacists are in violation of this rule.

The health insurance institute offers fake prescriptions that are paid for with fake prescriptions. The institute has access to the system of electronic prescriptions because it has a contract with numerous pharmacies.

Pharmacies can charge the institute for the medicine they did not issue to the patient on the basis of a fake prescription. This gives them the chance to sell a box of medicine twice, once to the institute, and the second time on the black market. The last case happened in Sarajevo. The identities of more than two hundred patients were misused, according to competent institutions. More than 350.000 BAM 175,000 euros were extracted from the health fund with fake prescriptions. The investigation is still ongoing, so the figure is not final.

The management of the Sarajevo Health Center received a criminal complaint about fake prescriptions in December 2021 from the Prosecutor's Office of Canton Sarajevo CS. The official investigation hasn't started yet. The Prosecutor's Office says they are collecting evidence and that they can't provide more information because of the protection of criminal proceedings.

I became the director on September 1, 2021. In the middle of the month, I came across information that prescriptions were being written for people who do not use this therapy, says Abel Baltic, director of the Public Institution Health Centre of CS.

The institution has about 2.000 employees and provides primary health care for about 400.000 patients in nine health centers. Each doctor of the health center has his own unique password to access the electronic prescription system. The cantonal institute of health insurance manages the system, and there are 176 pharmacies in the canton.

Baltic said he formed a disciplinary commission, and found that all fake prescriptions were written using the passwords of six doctors, against whom he filed a criminal complaint. Baltic doctors denied they wrote fake prescriptions during the disciplinary investigation. They claimed their passwords were misused.

The Anti-corruption and Quality Control Office of the CS was informed about the whole case, according to the Sarajevo Health Center. The investigation was expanded by the office, which determined that it was the passwords of nine, not six, doctors. The identity of at least 209 patients was misused, according to Slobodna Evropa.