With the introduction of the system for automatic reporting of dispensed prescriptions by pharmacies, which was put into operation at the beginning of 2026, and the implementation of online prescription control, errors in the dispensing of medicines partially or fully reimbursed by the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) have decreased by an impressive more than 98%. This was announced by Georgi Nedev, Head of Health Insurance Systems at Information Services, during the Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Days 2026 conference held in Borovets. Before digitalization, experts from the Regional Health Insurance Funds registered more than 22,000 dispensing errors on average each month, while after the reform the error rate fell below 2%.
“With the introduction of real-time controls and the automatic reporting system, the administrative burden has been completely eliminated and the risk of financial penalties for pharmacies due to technical errors has been removed,” said Georgi Nedev. According to him, these impressive results were achieved thanks to the successful cooperation between Information Services, NHIF, Ministry of Health, Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union, Bulgarian Medical Association, and software companies providing specialized healthcare software.
The reporting process is now carried out directly through the integration between pharmacy software, National Health Information System (NHIS), and the NHIF database. When a pharmacist scans and dispenses a medicine, the system automatically verifies and confirms the transaction within milliseconds. The sale is automatically registered as completed and approved for reimbursement by NHIF, without the need for a subsequent report. Before digitalization, pharmacy staff had to generate and submit nearly 5,000 reports every month, which were then processed and manually reviewed by inspectors from the Regional Health Insurance Funds. This often led to numerous disputes with pharmacists, appeals procedures, and arbitration cases.
A significant improvement has also been achieved in prescription issuance. Thanks to preventive real-time control, prescription errors are identified at the moment medicines are prescribed, saving considerable time and costs for both pharmacies and patients, who no longer need to return to their physician for prescription corrections. Currently, more than 2,400 pharmacies across the country use the new system, and over 3.4 million medicine dispensing transactions are processed every month.