maccabi-medicine-lookup

name

maccabi-medicine-lookup

description

Look up an Israeli medication on Maccabi Healthcare Services' (מכבי שירותי בריאות) member-facing medicine catalogue. Returns structured JSON — list price in ₪, per-insurance-plan copayment (Maccabi Sheli, Maccabi Zahav, Sal Basisi by age bracket), basket inclusion (סל), prescription requirement, prior-approval requirement (אישור מחלקת אישורי תרופות), dosage form, and a link out to Infomed for clinical info. Use when the user asks about price, coverage, copay, or whether a Maccabi member needs prior approval — including questions about a specific Maccabi insurance tier (שלי / זהב). Drugs are identified by English brand name + dose + pack size (e.g. "LISSIN 70MG 30TABS"). For clinical info (ingredients, side effects, leaflet), use `drug-co-il-lookup` instead.

Maccabi medicine lookup

maccabi4u.co.il/healthguide/medicines/ is Maccabi's member-facing drug catalogue (~5,260 drugs). Each drug page lists Maccabi-specific commercial info: list price, per-insurance-tier copayment, basket inclusion from Maccabi's POV, prescription/prior-approval requirements, dosage form, and a link out to Infomed for clinical content.

This is not a clinical reference — for ingredients, indication, side effects, or leaflets, use drug-co-il-lookup.

Two operations

1. Search

Maccabi's medicines homepage embeds the entire catalogue as a JSON blob (<input id="hiddenForSearch">). The skill downloads it once at first use and caches it at ~/.cache/maccabi-medicine-lookup/index.json (TTL 7 days). Search is a local case-insensitive token-AND match against the English brand name + pack size.

The index is never bundled with this skill — Maccabi's catalogue changes (new drugs, delistings, renaming), and shipping a stale snapshot would mislead users. Always fetch fresh on first run.

python3 skills/maccabi-medicine-lookup/scripts/lookup.py search "lissin 70"
python3 skills/maccabi-medicine-lookup/scripts/lookup.py search "vyvanse"

Returns [{id, name, url}, ...]. Names are English-brand-only (e.g. LISSIN 70MG 30TABS, VYVANSE CAPSULE 70MG (30)) — Hebrew names are not in the index. If the user gives a Hebrew name, translate to the English brand first (or use drug-co-il-lookup to find the English brand, then search here).

Each strength/pack-size is its own entry (Lissin 30/50/70 mg, Vyvanse 30/50/70 mg, etc.). When the user is vague about dose, present the matches and ask.

To force a catalogue refresh:

python3 skills/maccabi-medicine-lookup/scripts/lookup.py refresh-index

2. Fetch

Pass either a numeric drug id or a full URL.

python3 skills/maccabi-medicine-lookup/scripts/lookup.py fetch 37695
python3 skills/maccabi-medicine-lookup/scripts/lookup.py fetch "https://www.maccabi4u.co.il/healthguide/medicines/תרופות/37695/"

Returns a Drug JSON with:

• name, infomed_url
• terms_and_approvals[]: each with label, granted (bool from green-V/red-X icon), and an optional more_info_url (e.g. the booking link for prescription, the prior-approval submission portal). The page typically shows three terms: בסל, מרשם, אישור.
• Convenience booleans derived from those terms: in_health_basket, requires_prescription, requires_prior_approval
• dosage_form (Hebrew, e.g. טבליות / כמוסה)
• where_to_purchase, pharmacy_locator_url
• list_price_ils (parsed numeric ₪) + list_price_text
• insurance_coverage[]: list of {plan, eligibility, copay_text} covering Maccabi's own tiers (מכבי שלי, מכבי זהב) and the national-basket entries (סל בסיסי, repeated per age bracket: 6–17, 18–28, 29+). The percentages, the minimum-fee notes (אגרת מינימום), and the eligibility brackets are all kept as raw Hebrew text for fidelity.
• pricing_disclaimer (the standard "estimate, finalised at dispensing" caveat)
• raw_text fallback for selector drift

Notes when answering the user

• The list price is the uninsured price. What the member actually pays is list_price × copay_pct for percentage plans, with a minimum-fee floor for the basket plans.
• A drug being in_health_basket=true does not mean free — it means subsidised. Always pair with the relevant insurance_coverage entry for the user's tier and age.
• requires_prior_approval=true is a practical blocker — surface it prominently. The more_info_url on that term takes the member to the online approval-request form.
• Hebrew text in copay_text and eligibility is kept verbatim — translate when answering the user, but quote the original numbers (₪ amounts, percentages, age brackets) without rounding.
• This catalogue is Maccabi-only. Klalit / Meuchedet / Leumit have their own equivalents, not covered here.

Dependencies

requests and beautifulsoup4. The catalogue cache lives at ~/.cache/maccabi-medicine-lookup/.