The Government has approved a bill that enables specialist doctors in private institutions to prescribe subsidized drugs. Previously only public healthcare providers were able to do this.

The bill establishes a contract template to be signed between private institutions and the National Health Insurance Company. As a result, patients will be able to receive subsidized medicines after seeing specialist doctors such as neurologists, psychiatrists, endocrinologists and pediatricians from private healthcare establishments.

The list of subsidized medicines includes 148 generic international names. From February 1, any patient with mandatory health insurance is entitled to free or partially subsidized drugs from the list.