User fees for national information system services in healthcare and social welfare confirmed for 2022–2023

NordenBladet — The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has confirmed the user fees related to electronic prescriptions and the Patient Data Repository for the years 2022 and 2023.Doctors and dentists may continue to issue prescriptions in the Kelain online prescription service without any user fee when the service is not used for the purpose of profit.The fee charged to pharmacies will be EUR 0.054 for each electronic prescription dispensed by pharmacies and their subsidiary pharmacies. The fee charged to municipal healthcare service enablers will be EUR 2.509 per each resident of the municipality per year. The fee charged to private healthcare service enablers will be EUR 0.489 for each electronic prescription issued by them. However, the minimum chargeable fee will be EUR 90 per year. The minimum fee will also apply to those private healthcare service enablers who do not issue any prescriptions.The fee charged to state healthcare units will be EUR 2.509 per client per year. The Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela) will pay EUR 50,000 per year for the use of medicine reimbursement data.Costs to be estimated in advanceThe fees will cover the certificate services provided by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency and the maintenance costs incurred by Kela in managing the Kanta Services. The Kanta Services include the following services: the electronic prescription service; the national Patient Data Repository; My Kanta Pages, which is a citizen user interface to the Kanta Services; the Information Management Service; and the service for recording declarations of intent.The costs will be estimated in advance and the fees will be determined on the basis of this estimate. The purpose is that every user, i.e. public and private healthcare service enablers and pharmacies, will pay only for the actual use of services.The total costs for 2022–2023 are estimated at EUR 46.8 million, of which Kela’s share is EUR 42.43 million and that of the Digital and Population Data Services Agency is EUR 4.4 million. Kela’s share includes accumulating a buffer to safeguard liquidity. Of this sum, pharmacies account for EUR 7.36 million, public healthcare for EUR 27.77 million and private healthcare for EUR 8.51 million.

Source: Valtioneuvosto.fi