"I do not make the prescription because I am without a system and from the prepaid they told us that we could not enter," was the response that Paula received, on Friday, when she went to the office to renew the medication that is about to end. Marcela, who did have a prescription, went to a famous chain of pharmacies in the City of Buenos Aires but they could not take the discount for social work: "You can pay it 100% and come back another day with the prescription and we will reimburse you," they offered her.
Those are some of the phrases that a week after the hacking of the network used by pharmacies and prepaid medicine companies, patients and customers continue to hear. It is that the problems continue in the Imed platform, of the company Bizland, which authorizes the dispensing of prescriptions and discounts on medicines. There is still no estimated date for the definitive solution of the cyberattack.
Although the system of validation of medical prescriptions in pharmacies was restored on May 17, multiple intermittencies persist that prevent the normalization of operations. Why does it become saturated? Due to the number of transactions, especially at peak times, which can cause delays in validating patient coverage. The service is expected to improve in the coming days, as information traffic decreases.
Clarín made a survey in some pharmacies in the City to know how the current panorama is and found some problems in the operation of the validation system. In Soy tu farmacia on Berutti Street everything was normalized, but in a branch of Farmacity in Pueyrredón they responded this Sunday they had not been able to validate a prescription from Galeno. In another pharmacy in Larrea they experienced problems with Osde and in one of Montes de Oca Avenue there were difficulties with Medicus.
The hack affected pharmacies that use the Imed and Farmalink systems. Photo Rafael Mario Quinteros
"We all had the same problem. The system was reset, but transactions multiplied to validate recipes from previous days. We understand that with the passage of time this will be solved because the number of transactions that occurred on Friday and Saturday are unusual, which is due to the fact that prescriptions are being validated a week ago, "says Isabel Reinoso - President of the Argentine Pharmaceutical Confederation (Cofa), in dialogue with Clarín.
Claudio Ucchino, vice president of the official college of pharmacists and biochemists of the Federal Capital, also insists that the system of authorizations and validations of social and prepaid works is being normalized little by little. "There are delays in the information and we are having a hard time validating some prescriptions from previous days due to the flow or funnel produced by so many days without possibilities to validate recipes. Pami has another validation and authorization system of its own that was not hacked, so we had no problems in the care of older adults," he says.
In Farmacity they also highlight that the incident in the Imed system, the one in charge of validating the recipes, is general and is not yet working at 100%. "It's intermittent. It comes and goes. It is replicated in all branches. You may take the prescription in one and not in another. We hope that it will soon stabilize, but we do not have a date of when it will be resolved because it does not depend on Farmacity, "they argue from the entity.
What is intermittency all about?
It's minute by minute. "The sale can be carried out without problems if the system is not down by intermittency when a patient comes. You try several times, but when there is no response, you can not attend it because in the validation affiliate and coverage are validated, "says Reinoso.
As for the attention of the public, Ucchino comments that the clients understood the problem and that, except for specific cases, they were not angry about the delay in approvals. "So that no one was left without their medication, we gave them three options: if they still had medication, we suggested they wait; We offered them a cheaper alternative with the same drug or we told them to pay the full value of the input and then ask for reimbursement in the social work, "he says.
It also indicates that from the College of pharmacists and biochemists of the Capital they asked the affected prepaid medicine companies not to produce debits of the prescriptions dispensed in pharmacies so as not to generate damage.
What is Farmalink's response?
In a statement that Farmalink issued on Saturday, the company assumes that, after the incident suffered, the validation service is far from the quality standards they want to offer because there are still some difficulties that are in the process of analysis and solution. Which?
On the one hand, part of the access software installed in pharmacies stopped working with the new security parameters, and are in the process of being updated by technical support.
On the other hand, the Imed web client was overloaded by the above, and works below its necessary performance, especially at peak times. And, finally, there are instabilities that degrade the performance of the central validation system, in short but significant periods. In those moments, retries and rejections are generated by timeout.
They also clarify that resources were added with the aim of stabilizing and normalizing the system. In this sense, new security components were added that analyze traffic online and block malicious code.
"Our technical teams are working to resolve these issues. We hope to continue with the improvement of the service during the weekend and in the coming days. We appreciate your accompaniment, patience and understanding for the events that happened, hoping to be able to provide you with the best care as soon as possible," the statement concludes.
MG