More abuses of patient data were observed in the Canton of Sarajevo (CS). Namely, non-existent diagnoses were entered into their medical records with the aim of issuing prescriptions for expensive drugs. In addition to this harming the budget, an even bigger problem is the threat to the treatment of patients due to this type of crime.
Cases of fraud were discovered by Al Jazeera Balkans (AJB) when they were contacted by Erol Prasljivic, an injured health insured person, who found out about the attributed false diagnosis when he came to the Health Center only because of a change of address in the health canton.
”The doctor asked me how you are dealing with diabetes. I asked her what diabetes. She says you take insulin. I say I don’t. I think to myself, maybe she got the wrong card. She says you are also on anti-depressants. I say I really have no idea what you are talking about,” he said.
After the case was checked, it was determined that someone broke into the system and used his personal data, on the basis of which they issued prescriptions and picked up medicines at pharmacies.
The newly elected management of the Public Institution Health Center of CS recorded several such cases in the past year alone with several different names of doctors who are suspected of having misused the password used to access the system. In the last few days, the prosecutor’s office received two new reports.
Namely, all reports refer to the previous year, however, the AJB discovered from a source that the system was compromised even two years ago. Specifically, their source had a problem after the operation with receiving adequate therapy because he was dealing with a falsely entered insulin diagnosis.
”Now I’m wondering God forbid I have an accident whether I can be adequately treated as a healthy person or whether I will be treated as a diabetic,” the source stated.
All reports and information about malfeasance will be sent to the prosecutor’s office, according to Lejla Brcic, assistant director for legal affairs of the Health Insurance Institute of CS.
”We have a situation where all the prescriptions were written by one doctor and they were realized in one pharmacy with the same name of the employee who dispensed those medicines,”she said.
Those who do this jeopardize not only the budget but also the adequate treatment of the victims whose data they misused.
The Health Center says that only those who have administrative control, namely the company MedIT, can get to the heart of the problem, but they did not want to speak to the media.
