Pharmacies in the country are facing serious challenges with the introduction of dual labeling of drug prices in levs and euros, dariknews.bg reported.
The main problem is the technical imperfection of the pharmacy software, which does not yet display prices in euros. This makes it difficult for pharmacists to work, because some of them are forced to adjust prices manually.
The dual labeling of prices in levs and euros poses a serious test for pharmacies - the software is late, and some of the functions are not fully developed, reports the Pariteni.bg website.
"A large part of the suppliers launched their software towards the end of the month, which really gave very little time for colleagues to react. Also, some of the software launched with errors. There is no visualization of prices in euros in our software, which is on the sales screen. We still see the old price on the sales screen, which is in leva. There is an option to see the price in euros, but this is not live, and we have to take a few additional steps," said Vasil Khodzhev, owner of a pharmacy and member of the Board of Directors of the Bulgarian Pharmaceutical Union, to BNT.
Initially, the software also gave inaccurate calculations of the prices of medicines from leva to euros, requiring manual additions.
"This was really very difficult for colleagues, as they have fewer staff. It's vacation time right now, as you know, and unfortunately, this came at the cost of an enormous amount of work on the part of our colleagues," said Vasil Khodzhev.
To deal with double labeling, Vasil does not rely on external software, but is developing his own.
"We were actually ready and started, as soon as the final euro exchange rate was confirmed, to relabel in the pharmacy, which gave us a pretty big head start," he believes.
"We are 80% ready, but this is a very good overfulfillment of the tasks. In addition to serving patients, time must be allocated that was not planned. "We use every free time to relabel each package," explained Stanka Markova, deputy chairwoman of the Association of Assistant Pharmacists in Burgas.
By October 8, all pharmacies are required to list drug prices in both leva and euros.