Aasandha, the government-initiated health insurance scheme, has introduced a new verification step requiring pharmacists or pharmacies to enter an OTP sent to the customer’s phone before issuing medication for prescriptions.
A number of pharmacies in Male’ region have already started using this method.
Information including the phone number and national ID card of the customer is acquired before sending the OTP. The prescription is filled only after the OTP has been received and entered into the system.
Aasandha Media official Ashiya Solih said this arrangement was made in response to complaints from public.
She said that the public have raised concerns about consulting doctors in clinics and then opting to fill the prescription elsewhere, for patients to be told the medicines have already been issued at the clinic’s in-house pharmacy.
To date, pharmacies have not required any additional information besides the prescription itself to issue medicine.