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Ok, so now I am excited about v5 because I really want to use the eRX capability. It looks like it will be included in our maintenance service plan! Could someone tell me how this works when a patient wants a refill? The pharmacy contacts us and does the refill request somehow show up in AC? Do I need to maintain a separate medlist in surescripts or are they somehow synced? Do I need to go to their website to use the service? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I would be happy if someone could just tell me how to not get the error messages. I activate prescribing in AC, then activated Sure Scripts, but it still says Inactive in the program.

I am new to eRx. Is there anything I need to pay for to activate this? I know it's supposed to be free in AC, but do I need to pay for some service like this "SureScripts" thing or something to use eRx ???

No - if you have issues after going into administrative options and activating e prescribing I would call Angel Support next week and get help. You activate it and then it gets turned on.

Is there somewhere we can see a demo of how it works?

Here. The eRx overview starts at 3 minutes and 7 seconds.

Thanks, Jon.
I have been playing with this version on my home computer and so far I am quite impressed. It seems many of the little things that bugged me are changed or improved.
I guess I can just sign up for the eRx to see what happens but I am still curious how the pharmacy contacts me through the eRx and how that interfaces with AC.

I am still having errors where the word "Maine" is used quite often. I also notice that when I tried to type in my practice information, it says, Brewer MAINE. It is definitely set for the full name of the state and not the abbreviation.

On V4, My practice information allows me to type in lower case. So, the script heading comes out: Brewer, MAINE 04412 and, given the error message from Sure Scripts makes reference to Maine, I wonder if that is the issue.

Is this the case for anyone else? Pun not intended.

I think I finally got it to work. But, it still says it is not activated in the Interface section.

If anyone has the fax number for sending the Sure Scripts licensing to AC, could you PM me with it or just put it here?

Well, I filled in the credentials and fax'd the contract, so I guess I am just supposed to wait until (tomorrow presumably) they send me a verification email.(?)

questions, questions....

My eRx has been activated. The email states: "We recommend you hold off on purchasing e-RX now and wait for the improved e-Rx."

Does this mean that e-Rx is only included with the final v5 release (not with this beta)? Or is this just saying "don't purchase service through anyone else because it's free now?"

Sorry but I am a bit confused.

Even though in the admin section the newcrop says inactivated, it still works. So I have not worried about what it shows on the interface section.

The script letterhead needs to be 100% accurate, otherwise it will not be accepted. In V4 we had our webaddress on the letterhead. I had to remove that to conform to V5 escript heading.

In the admin section, in the electronic prescription interface,in the account administration, if you click on med entry - once you start using e Rx, the requests from pharmacy will show up and if you want to - you can start taking those requests and e rx for those listed pts.

The bigggest jobs all users will have -
1. Codify the medications. In the script module, right click on each medicine and codify so the drug interaction can work. Be careful here, as if you hurry you could codify to wrong medications and you will spend some time clearing up the mess you may have created. I have found to avoid creating mess, turn off the drug interaction checks in the right top setting screen- then codify. If it is not codified it will not be in erx format to check for interactions. Patients on multiple medications will have a lot of interaction checks and most doctors will start ignoring those checks I believe as you either already know them or it will drive you nuts. Do not blame AC for this, this is true for all EMRs with interaction checks --as I have learned from other EMR users posts elsewhere.

2. Defining the order sets. V5 is totally a new beauty to take care of. You will have to spend time to define order sets for labs, xrays etc. This will take some time to get used. Slow down your schedule for a couple of weeks, if you have gaps in schedule block them now itself so you can catch up inbetween pts and not get behind in your work.

3. Set health maintenance. This will take some time - I believe you will have to do homework and train your staff.

4. Setup scheduling nowitself. This will take some time, so you can open up for next 10 yrs or more of your schedule. Otherwise your staff may not be able to schedule pts for a date for more than 6 mths.

5. If you do not codify your diagnoses it will not show up on the lab or xray order sheet. You will have to start codifying all your diagnoses- otherwise the lab or xray order you put in may not show the payable diagnoses. I believe it was set up this way to allow user requests to start searching for orders and PCMH requirements to start keeping track of all orders given by doctors to close the loop. If doctor did not get the lab result, the loop is not closed and office will have to work on that.

(As you may have noticed from my earlier post about coder chicks and coder hunks,I had to give somebody else my peace of mind- not AC but the requirements you and I have to meet to make to help patients). Not only my patients needed patience, even I had to have patience in this matter.

Good luck. You will get used to V5 in no time and still love V5 for its simplicity and ability to try it downloading from internet unlike other EMRS where you have to wait for 3 mths to even get it installed. You will love the challenge taking matter into your hands and be an active participant in the growth of your practice.

Just do autobacks. We have found ours is working flawlessly.

got my issues with eRx expertly resolved by Claire and Eric. (the team known as "Cleric?")

It was ambiguous. I took it to mean wait until V5 and not do it in V4 and pay for it. It has probably been used for awhile. Good question though.

And, it's actually Eclair.

I will just continue to write all my scripts by hand. It will be months before I get eRx to work.

why not just call e-clair?

Cause I am on a diet, lol.

But, I probably will. Maybe I will just "ping" her. I'm glad there is no one there with a last nameof Pong.

Bert - bite the bullet and call Guardian Angel Support - I know that causes you personal pain realizing you have to call them.....you will be okay.

I did, and he just kind of stared at the chat window.

Just keep telling yourself it is okay and you are not a failure because you have to call........

LOL @ Steven (well, not AT Steven...hahaa)

I successfully transmitted scripts electronically, with essentially no prior practice and it was seemless and "Amazing!"

I found that when you first sign up for eRx, Surescripts sends them through by FAX for a couple of days until it goes 100% "electronic".

Once you get used to using them you will love them - the next thing you should do is use the New Crop screens - that will allow you to see formularies (particularly for Medicare Part D) - not always accurate, but a start. Just in the scrip writer - upper left and choose new crop screens. This is also where e refills come in - you have to open each pt. chart to refill scrips and AC is working on making workflow better.

How do you know that the Rx was sent?

Is it documented anywhere?

I hit the send and te screen flashed

I will just continue to write all my scripts by hand. It will be months before I get eRx to work.

you are right. I called the pharmacy to confirm. The meds did appear in the patients active list.

Yeah, for me, it's embarrassing. I call my "test" pharmacy and say, "Here it comes, call me when you get it." And, then I click send, and my entire AC blows up. AARRGGHH!!

Can someone PLEASE look in their practice info in admin and tell me if your state is 1) spelled out as in Maine and not ME, and 2) if it is lower case and not upper case, e.g. MAINE?

Under "Practice (licensing info)" my state is listed exactly as "IN"

Interesting. Mine (because it made the heading look better) has always been Maine. Then I installed V5 on a VM and it would only allow all caps. That wouldn't work. It doesn't look like an area where you HAD to put in the state abbreviation as in the User Account Configuration.

My actual V4 on the LAN says, Maine, as it has for over six years, but then again it has never been the template for ePrescribing, e.g. I think Sure Scripts look at the information to match it up.

Now, the interesting thing is my test machine only had one patient. So, I did a backup of my original and restored into V5 on the virtual machine. Now all my data was there and I retuned it. The state was listed as "Maine" as it always has been. That didn't work. So, when I deleted Maine and put it in again, it only went in as all caps. Even when I changed it in V4 where it always goes in as "Maine," it now only goes in as MAINE. I find that odd given that Brewer is lower case no matter what.

Yes, it seems that is made to be caps-only assuming everyone will put two-letter postal abbrevs. for state.

I see BTW that when I refill a script and click "SEND" to pharmacy, the button does grey-out and says "transmitting" before closing. Still, it would be nice to have it confirm receipt by the pharmacy. I guess that would require a confirmation via SureScripts. Oh well. Otherwise it's going so smoothly. Patients are impressed by the speed of the process.

Mine is listed as "WA"

Even though you could spell it completely out.

Bert have you called guardian angel ? I may have to call them and have them return a call to you.....

I was getting help from a higher power.

Address in patient demographics: Dropdown with all states -- can only insert two letter code.

Address for users in admin section: Not a dropdown box but can only put two letter code.

Address for practice information: Enough room to type the Preamble to the Constitution in the state section. I used to have "Maine" in all of my versions up until 5. Now in 5, plenty of room, but you MUST have ME unless you are happy with MAINE. Then go back to v4 and see the beautiful state of Maine in lower case. Delete it and try to type back in lower case. I can't.

It's an all state upper case epidemic.

Bert -- did you get it to work??????

Funny that you asked that. I have three different operating systems on my VMWare. They all had different versions of AC and were at different stages as far as SQL and errors, etc. So, while this probably isn't the issue, I decided to nuke all my virtual machines. I just installed Windows 7 Ultimate clean. I really need to remember to take snapshots along the way.

Now, I am going (make that tomorrow) to re-install AC v5 and see if everything is better. If not, then I either have a problem because of using VM, which doesn't make sense or there is a problem with New Crop. Then I would email Jon again or tech support.

I'll get it by New Year's, lol. I appreciate your checking in.

Enquiring minds needed to know --- let us know when you get it going -- you are not really going to quit this early - it is only 11 pm your time..

Yeah, but you combine that with getting to bed after 3AM last night, over 30 patients today and one of them just had to have a bilirubin of 18.6.

But, I guess if you're going to get a bili of 18.6, you would want it when you are four days old.

Then, my install of eSET AV corrupted my biller's profile, so I had to nuke that too and give her a new profile. Fortunately, that is easy since I have a default profile on the server. For some reason, I have to reinstall all of Ed's programs even though they work for everyone else's account. I think he just put a line of code in there just to make them do that.

OK, now this is scary. And, I hope I don't hijack this thread. But, I am starting to like...no...I can't say it...must stop..OK, I will say it. I'm starting to like this WIN7 thing. Especially with Ultimate (haven't used professional yet, just Business). It's kind of like V5. Can be quite different with a lot to learn, but all of a sudden you just fall upon a feature.

Then, I tried the Unity thing. That is just way too cool. Sorry, that's a virtual machine thing. VMWare. But, you are using your VM, in this case I am running WIN7. Then you open a program like Word or a game. You are running it virtually. Then you click on Unity and the Virtual Machine you are using disappears (minimizes) and the program FROM the VM is now running on your own machine. That was worth staying up 30 more minutes.

OK, you can have your thread back.