Benefits of E-Prescribing for Pharmacists
E-prescribing results in the delivery of “clean” prescriptions which benefits pharmacists by:
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Reducing the
opportunity for medication errors |
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Offering
prescribers access to patient prescription
benefit coverage which means fewer rejected
claims and less rework at the pharmacy |
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Reducing paperwork and re-keying, which allows you to spend more time with patients or reallocate that time to activities such as medication therapy or inventory management |
Unlike faxes or paper prescriptions, e-prescriptions go directly into your computer. Renewal authorizations can be managed with a few keystrokes. When compared with all other forms of prescriptions, e-prescriptions reduce the amount of staff time needed to complete dispensing activities by 27% for new prescriptions and 10% for renewals (valued at $1.07 and $0.41 per prescription respectively1).
Patient compliance is one of the not-so-obvious benefits of electronic prescribing. Research shows that 20% of prescriptions never even make it to the pharmacy. A study conducted by Walgreens and Surescripts showed that once a practice starts e-prescribing, 11 percent more of their prescriptions get dispensed2. This makes sense, given that 100% of e-prescriptions make it to the pharmacy. But, more importantly, these prescriptions were also picked up at the same rate as other prescriptions, which adds to the patient compliance element.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly for your bottom line, e-prescribing physicians prefer to do business with e-prescribing enabled pharmacies because they no longer want to receive faxed refill authorizations. Nearly every chain pharmacy is already accepting e-prescriptions and electronic prescription renewals.
Click here to learn how to enable your pharmacy for e-prescribing.
1. e-Prescribing: The Value Proposition. Rupp, April 2005, America’s Pharmacist, Figures updated August 2007
2. Research conducted by Surescripts and Walgreens using prescriber data from IMS Health, 2007