Dear reader
Welcome to the January – February issue of the EHFCN newsletter.
In view of the upcoming workshop on analytics which will take place on 3rd March we are happy to provide you with two recent articles on detecting and preventing fraud with analytics. Talking about the workshop there are still a few places left. However in order to keep it to a ‘workable' dimension, we will limit attendance to 45 people, allowing for only 4 more people to attend. If you would like to attend, don't wait any further and register now!
The newsletter is also the occasion for us to come back to the Patient Mobility directive which has finally been voted upon at the European Parliament in January of this year, after lengthy debates and discussions. The new rule, which is due to come into force in 2013, will especially benefit patients seeking advanced treatments for rare diseases, those living along borders where the nearest hospital is across the line, or those who work in one country but want to get treatment near family members in another country. It is currently estimated that only 1% of patients seeks treatment abroad. However the figure is likely to grow. EHFCN will continue to monitor the implementation of the directive and intends to collaborate with the European Parliament and member states to alert on potential cross-border fraud risks. On a related matter, although outside the EU, you may be interested to read about the new health cooperation between Russia and Norway.
Further articles include the announcement of EHFCN launching its awareness campaign as it will join the international fraud awareness month in March. Two articles from our member organisation in Spain give an update on two very recent trials, the first one involving a pharmacist who falsified hundreds of prescriptions, the second one for a doctor who forged prescriptions.
In addition, we would like to mention that María and Judith have recently finished their internship at the EHFCN Office and we are happy to inform that we are now having two new interns joining the EHFCN Office, Petra from the Netherlands and Attilio from Italy.
Finally, information about other upcoming events of EHFCN is provided in this newsletter as well. We have no doubt about the added value of attending these interesting events and can only recommend that you mark the dates in your agenda!
Enjoy reading!
PS. If you would like to see an article being published or if you have interesting information or facts to share with us regarding fraud and corruption in the healthcare sector, we are more than happy to add your article to our newsletter. You can contribute by sending your article to: newsletter@ehfcn.org. We are looking forward to receiving your news!
