USK: Doctors Sanctioned for Prescription Abuse

Doctors Amir Cerić, Mehmed Hukić and Hajrudin Omerović of the Bihać Health Centre, and doctor Refika Purić-Sarajlija of the Velika Kladuša Health Centre, have had their prescription-writing authorisations revoked for one month by the Health Insurance Fund of the Una-Sana Canton (ZZO USK), reports the Patria news agency.

The decision was made two days ago by the Fund's director, Almin Handanagić, following an inspection conducted last year, which found that these doctors had violated regulations on prescribing and issuing prescriptions.

"The director has the legal right to revoke a doctor's code for thirty days pending a final decision," Handanagić told journalists from the Centre for Investigative Journalism (CIN).

In August last year, the Fund established a Commission for the Control of Prescribing and Dispensing Medicines, which used a random sampling method to analyse the work of doctors at the Bihać Health Centre for the first six months of 2015. Between 100 and 200 patient records were reviewed for each of the fourteen doctors at this health institution.

A month ago, the Fund's Management Board accepted the Commission's Report and tasked the director of this institution with sanctioning, in accordance with regulations, the doctors who had abused their official authorisations.

The doctors were sanctioned two weeks after CIN published the story "Prescription for Corruption", which showed how certain doctors and pharmacies in the Una-Sana Canton are extracting money from the Fund through fake and altered prescriptions.

CIN reported that doctors Mehmed Hukić and Amir Cerić had prescribed 212 prescriptions to patients without their knowledge. The patients had neither been examined nor collected the prescribed medications.

By analysing the aforementioned report, CIN journalists showed that the prescriptions of these doctors were most often filled through the pharmacies "Europharm" and "Kovačević". A total of 118 fake prescriptions from these pharmacies were submitted to the Fund for payment for the first six months of last year.

According to the same report, doctor Hajrudin Omerović prescribed 86 prescriptions that were not recorded in the patients' medical records, while in more than half of these prescriptions, a larger quantity of medication was prescribed than the determined therapy.

CIN journalists are in possession of two of Omerović's prescriptions on which a larger quantity of medication was added than he had originally prescribed. In the first prescription, he prescribed one package of medication, and at the "Europharm" pharmacy, another package was added. According to the Commission's Report, 59 of Omerović's 86 disputed prescriptions were filled at the "Europharm" and "Kovačević" pharmacies.

The owner of these pharmacies, Aida Alagić, previously told CIN journalists that she does not recognise the Commission's findings, because the contract between the Fund and these pharmacies does not provide for such control.

In the second prescription, doctor Omerović also prescribed one package of medication, and at the Health Institution "Gradska apoteka" in Bihać, another three packages were added. In total, according to the report, seven of his prescriptions were filled at this pharmacy.

The Fund soon plans sanctions against pharmacies that added quantities to regularly prescribed prescriptions.

"The Management Board of the ZZO has adopted conclusions relating to both the doctors and the pharmacies that were included in the control," said Handanagić.

Doctor Purić–Sarajlija from the Velika Kladuša Health Centre told CIN journalists that she did not abuse her authority when prescribing prescriptions. She notes that the Fund conducted the inspection while she was on annual leave. 

"I went to Slovenia, because my family is there, and that's when the commission came to inspect my prescriptions, when I wasn't there," says Purić–Sarajlija.

The director of the Velika Kladuša Health Centre, Lirija Jusufović, says that this doctor was on annual leave, but that the Fund had announced the inspection several days earlier.

"Her case was the most obvious, meaning something that immediately caught the commission's eye, and they came and conducted the inspection and found grounds for sanctioning that doctor," Jusufović told CIN, adding that the Fund will continue inspecting the other doctors at this health centre this month.