When a pt calls for a prescription, the staff sends a message to the doctor and he authorizes the refill or tells what antibiotic he wants, etc.
The staff member saves the message to the chart, opens the prescription window, enters the prescription, noting in the comment field which pharmacy it was called into. That way the med list is updated and there's documentation in the chart that the doctor authorized the prescription.
Our staff likes having the addendum so that when the patient calls back an hour later from the drugstore, whoever takes the call can see that yes, it was in fact called in.
It's also a good tip when we see a bunch of refill addendums that we need to address the situation.
When the doctor does a refill himself using eprescribing it's a lot faster (obviously) and the med list is updated, but there's no documentation that it was a refill.
And should the doctor then sign the chart or just exit? We don't want to have a potential billing errors.
How do other offices handle this?
