In the version 4.0.52 that I have running in my office:
THE GOOD
1. Clicking the tab for eRx brings over the patient demographics, but not the med list or allergies. These have to be entered once for each patient, which takes several clicks for each entry. Having said that, it goes faster after you do the procedure on a few patients. This could easily be a staff member task, since all the meds can be entered, and then left in the doctors "in-box" to authorize and transmit.
2. It does give you the option of syncing the patient's on-line med list with your office database, but it doesn't always work.
3. The online application does work with Dragon Dictate, both Preferred version 9.5 and Medical version 10 (I have tried both).
4. When a prescription refill request arrives from the pharmacy electronically, a reminder flag (with the number of pending prescriptions) appears on the top of the eRx window (but only when you have the eRx tab open). By clicking on the flag, you get a list of refills waiting by patient name. But you have to then open each patient's chart on AC, and then return to the eRx tab to approve the refill. Wow, somehow I expected an eRx add-on to work with AC seamlessly, so if I get most of my refill requests electronically, it might even save some time. Not yet.
THE BAD
1. I don't like the fact that refilling the patient's prescription by eRx will not update the "last refill" in the office database of AC. So when you bring up the patient's medlist on AC later, and click on a drug, you won't know that you may have recently refilled that med (by eRx). You can update the latest refill date by entering what you just did on online eRx using the prescription writer, as if you were going to print a prescription. But again, more double entry. Interestingly, if you do a NEW prescription using the online eRx tab, when you transmit it, it gives the option of "downloading the SureScripts Medication List" to AC, which DOES add the new med to the office database. C'mon guys, it can't be that hard to do this. We all started using EMRs to avoid double entries!
2. Any practitioner or staff member who has a password for AC can go to the eRx tab and write an eRx and transmit it to a pharmacy under a physician's name. I trust my staff, but does this sound like an electronic version of the signed, blank prescription pad?
AND THE UGLY
1. I'm sorry, but there are just too many search boxes, tabs and buttons to choose from on every window of the SureScripts online eRx application. Very non-intuitive (or "non-Mac-like", if you're an old Apple fanboy like me). Staff members unfamiliar with the program are always calling me over to their computer to ask which of the plethora of buttons will bring them to the next step.
