The present mobile application for the prices of medicinal products, developed on behalf of the National Council on Prices and Reimbursement of Medicinal Products (Council), provides users with the opportunity for quick and free access to information on the ceiling/registered prices of medicinal products sold on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria.
Through the application, users can obtain both regulatory approved medical and pricing information for the product of interest, as well as the public funding (reimbursement rate) of the product and whether the product is paid for by the National Health Insurance Fund for home treatment.The received information also states whether the medicinal products is subject to medical prescription or can be obtained without medical prescription (OTC).
The mobile application provides a unified, fast, personalized and intuitive search for drug information in all public registries maintained by the Council, saving users time and effort.
The application provides information about medicinal products by commercial name, International Nonproprietary Name (INN) (World Health Organization, n.d.) or by scanning a mark (barcode, data matrix code or QR code) on the packaging of the medicinal product.
When searching by commercial name or International Non-proprietary Name (INN), the result may be a list of several medicinal products. When one of them is marked, detailed information about the selected medicinal product is displayed. And when searching through a scanned label, the mobile application directly retrieves the information about the specific medicinal product (only for medicinal products included in the Positive Drug List).
In addition, the ability to search by International Non-proprietary Name (INN) allows the user to access all products included in the relevant group. In this way, a comparison can be made between medicinal products of different Marketing Authorization Holders (manufacturers) containing the same active substance, as well as between information on the amount of individual active substances, packaging, prices and other characteristics of the medicinal product of the group to which the prescribed medicine belongs.
The mobile application is useful and convenient for both citizens and medical professionals.
The application provides a convenient and easily accessible way to obtain information on the ceiling prices of medicinal products, thereby ensuring public price control.
The application supports doctors and pharmacists in the search for up-to-date information in real time about authorized medicinal products, as well as the cheapest medicine with the corresponding active substance (INN).