"The portal bb.lv reported that soon referrals for any examinations will only be accepted in electronic form. But what should one do if, for example, last year, a doctor issued a 'paper' referral, but it has not yet been used? And if it is possible, until when?"
Zane GORSHKOVA, Head of the Communication Department of the Latvian Digital Health Center:
– Currently, Latvia is transitioning to electronic referrals to doctors. The implementation period for the new procedure (transition period) is set until May 4 of this year - paper referrals can be used without restrictions.
However, to receive state-funded services after May 4, all previously issued paper referrals will need to be digitized. This means that representatives of medical institutions will have to manually enter all the information contained in the referral into the information system. A staff member at the registration desk of any medical institution that the patient approaches for services will be able to convert the paper referral into a digital format.
At the same time, even now, during the transition period, all medical workers are encouraged to issue electronic referrals whenever possible, so as not to create additional workload for registration staff in digitizing paper referrals, which may result in increased customer service times.
