Electronic Prescribing in SOAPware is ready for January 1, 2009 requirements

Electronic Prescribing in SOAPware meets the federal requirements for Medicare. Faxing will not meet the requirements, so EHR users will not have the option of faxing prescriptions. Of note, the law will allow users of EHR's to print out a prescription and then manually fax to the retail pharmacy.

This has caused a lot of confusion because many doctors think electronic prescribing means the same as faxing. The Feds do not consider faxing to be equal to electronic prescribing. This is true even though many pharmacies are still unable to receive the prescription information electronically and still receive faxes.

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Of note, the mail order pharmacies are not using the Surescripts network that connects to retail pharmacies. They use another network administered by RxHub. The approach we have previously used has been to send a fax from SOAPware's eRx fax-server to the PBM, mail order pharmacies. Soon, we will have an interface with RxHub as it has merged with SureScrips. This will hopefully resolve the means by which some PBM's are declining to fill legitimate, non-scheduled meds.

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The Department of Justice (via DEA) has determined that it is not legal to electronically transfer prescriptions for scheduled medications. To get around this obstacle, SOAPware and most eRx software have set up mechanisms so that narcotics (in states allowing for faxing of narcotics) can be faxed to the pharmacy. This bypasses the need to use the Surescripts network as it can’t be used to transfer prescriptions for any scheduled medication in any state. 

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Soon, we will be completely revising the electronic prescribing functions with a focus on simplicity and supporting work flows more efficiently. The intent is to incorporate patient formulary information as well as the history of what pharmacies have actually filled for the patient. This will be automatically incorporated into all products avaiable from SOAPware, Inc. going forward.

Addendum:  You may have seen in the press in July, 2008 that the DEA released comments as to how they would allow for electronic prescribing. To make a long story short, it appears likely to be a lot longer before we will have a practical means for electronic prescribing any scheduled medications.

Some good news is that SureScripts and RxHub have merged. We anticipate this will make it easeir to incorporate formulary and "fill histories" more efficiently.

Doctors and the DEA   09/26/08

E-prescribing’s predicament   09/26/08

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"Effective January 1, 2012, computer generated faxes will no longer be in compliance with Medicare requirements. Prescriptions written using e-prescribing or EMR systems must be sent electronically to the pharmacy and not via fax