Bulgaria: health fund now checks reimbursed medicines in real time at the pharmacy counter

Bulgaria's National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF/НЗОК) will now check the dispensing of the medicines it pays for in real time. As the Focus news agency and the Mediapool portal reported on 30 October, the National Health Information System (НЗИС) checks the GTIN product code of every pack at the moment it is handed over at the pharmacy. Until now, discrepancies were only found afterwards – according to Mediapool, months after payment.

The move follows joint inspections by the fund, the State Agency for National Security (DANS) and the economic police. At 21 pharmacies in 12 regions, the national drug number on the prescription did not match the GTIN code of the pack actually dispensed; according to these reports, the amounts improperly received from the fund's budget exceed 1 million euros. No pharmacies were named. NHIF director Dr Vladimir Daskalov told Focus: "Every pack paid for with public money is now checked the moment it leaves the pharmacy."

Technically, the pharmacy software scans the 2D code on the pack and sends the GTIN to the central system along with the other dispensing data. If the code does not match the prescribed product, the system returns an error and rejects the transaction, blocking dispensing at the fund's expense. The control module was developed by the company Information Services (Информационно обслужване). According to the company, automatic reporting of filled prescriptions, introduced at the start of 2026, together with online checks at the prescribing stage, has already cut dispensing errors under the fund by more than 98 percent. Pharmacies must use software that transmits the GTIN correctly.