We're covering everything you love about optometry, technology, and software. And there's a lot of reasons to love technology these days. Technology has made day to day tasks more efficient and less time consuming.
Today, we're going to talk about e-Prescribing and why you'll love using it with your software. Not only is e-Prescribing a great tool for any practice, but it's also a requirement for completing attestation for MIPS. So if you're MIPS qualified, you might already be reaping the benefits of e-Prescribing.
Why You'll Love e-Prescribing with Your EHR Software
Prescription Routing
One of the biggest benefits of e-Prescribing is the ability to route prescriptions electronically to participating pharmacies, which will help keep you and your staff off of the phone. And, drug searching features allow you to search for drugs based on brand, cost, or ingredients. Once you have a patient's prescription picked out, it only takes a few clicks to send the prescription over to your choice of 95% of pharmacies across the nation. An added benefit for your patients is that e-Prescribing will alert you when certain drugs come with coupons - they'll love you for it!
Access to Medical History
Patient prescription history can be hard to keep track of, but is also very important to be aware of when prescribing new medications. With the right e-Prescribing tool you'll be able to access a full list of past and present medications for each patient. You can also go in and add medications that aren't already listed. Another great aspect is comprehensive history of patient medical claims from payers and benefit managers.
Education Materials
As we mentioned before, e-Prescribing plays a role in attesting to Meaningful Use. And, as part of the requirements, e-Prescribing tools must provide patient-specific education about medication in 18 different languages. You've probably noticed before that patients can draw up a blank stare when it comes to medication and prescription instructions, and you probably get phone calls all of the time asking about how to take certain prescriptions. With patient education materials it's never been easier to help your patients get the information they need.
Instant Notifications
With many e-Prescribing tools, you'll have a dashboard that provides warnings, such as drug recalls and renewal requests from pharmacies. Patient safety is a number one priority for both you and the pharmacies. This will also help ensure that you don't prescribe two medications that wouldn't work well together. Your system will automatically check to see if two drugs agree with each other, or if there are any patient allergies that you should be aware of.
Data Synchronization
You spend a lot of time typing information into your EHR software all day long. Decreasing duplicate data entry can be a big time saver to you throughout your day. With an e-Prescribing tool if you enter allergy information on a patient's information page, instead of having to record that information again when you get to the e-Prescribing tool, your patient's allergy information will already be there! Data synchronization throughout your EHR software is going to save you and your staff a lot of time in the long run!
Interested in learning more about e-Prescribing and other tools that you'll love with your EHR software? Download our eBook.
Originally published in Feb 2014, updated in Jan 2022.