The General Healthcare System (GHS) faces potential significant disruption following a landmark Administrative Court ruling that allows patients to obtain prescription medications through the national system even when prescribed by doctors not affiliated with GHS.
The Health Insurance Organisation (HIO), which administers the national healthcare system, is currently examining the ruling and is expected to determine its next steps on Thursday, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The decision addresses a contentious issue that has been repeatedly debated in public forums and parliamentary sessions.
In its detailed judgment, the court explicitly rejected the HIO’s interpretation of the legislation, stating that it was “misguided” and involved “adding words and combining provisions of the legislation” to achieve an interpretation inconsistent with the plain grammatical meaning of the law.
“The system must adapt to the correct interpretation of the law, and certainly not the opposite,” the court noted in its ruling, challenging the HIO’s position that prescriptions must be registered in the GHS computer system, which only contracted doctors can access.
The court’s decision hinged on an analysis of Article 22(2)(d) of the GHS law, which regulates the provision of healthcare services concerning necessary pharmaceutical products.
The judgment concluded that this provision does not stipulate that prescriptions must come exclusively from GHS-affiliated physicians.
The court explicitly stated that GHS-contracted pharmacists are authorised to dispense medications based on prescriptions issued by any qualified doctor, not exclusively those contracted with the system, provided the medications are included in the GHS formulary.
