In July, an error occurred in the data transmission of the medicine registry, which led to disruptions in the application of discounts on medications in pharmacies. The issue arose from a system update that caused the discount information to stop being transferred to the prescription center. This resulted in temporary problems, where patients received either a higher or lower discount than they were entitled to.

According to the Health Insurance Fund (Tervisekassa), 3,576 people were affected by this incident.

Maris Veermäe, the Health Insurance Fund's product manager for pharmaceutical solutions, stated that the extent of the incident has been identified and refunds will soon be processed for those who paid a few euros more than they should have at the pharmacy.

"For those who paid less, the Health Insurance Fund will not request any money back," Veermäe said.

Patients affected by the incident will be notified via SMS and email through the State Portal (Riigiportaal), and the overpaid amount will be refunded to their additional medication reimbursement (TRH) balance, which can be used for future prescription purchases at the pharmacy. The TRH balance can be viewed on the "Health care and prescriptions" subpage of the State Portal at eesti.ee.

For most users, the issue was resolved in August, though some prescription discounts continued to be affected by system errors until September.

Tõnis Jaagus, head of the health domain at the Health and Welfare Information Systems Center (TEHIK), said that, in collaboration with an external development partner, the errors that caused the failure in updating the discount rates have been corrected.

"We strengthened our testing processes and made the necessary changes to the system to ensure it functions better in the future. The last update of the discount rates was also successful as a result of these efforts," he said.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!