Home Forums Discussions Problems new user issues

So we went full board on Tuesday with Amazing Charts. After a few hours, I realized that there were many things that I needed to figure out.
1) how do you turn off the refill part on eprescribing. It seems to default to 1 refill.
2) Is there a list of short cuts? For example, Anthony at Guarding Angle mentioned that ctrl s saves the note. (that was very helpful!)
3) I have read that you need to "codify" the meds in eRX. I am not sure what this means. I just started prescribing and I have not had patients or the pharmacy complain. (Its amazing how few calls you get with eRX regarding problematic prescriptions.

Any other helpful hints would be appreciated.

Welcome. I'll throw in my 2 cent's worth on part of your question.

AC is pretty light on actual instructions, lists of short cuts, etc. They are kind of scattered around the user's group, but sometimes not under any word you would think of using for a search. It is (in my mind) a shortcoming. we need a real manual.

I notice that when I first started with AC and this group early in the year I posted a number of things that I had found or puzzled out under the "Tips and Tricks" section. Then, I got to just using AC as a tool rather than an object of fascination, and my postings dropped off. So, please post anything you find; if it was there before, oh well...... Probably no one remembers where they put it.

Codifying an eRx means linking it to one of the known prescriptions in the eRx hosting service... in this case (I think) Surescripts. AC is really just a gateway to this service. For example, if you enter "lisinopril", there are lots of different formulations, strengths, tablets vs. capsules, Canadian versions, etc. in their database, and if you just put the name of the drug, the service does not know which one you want. Sometimes, even if it is in the list offered, it seems to not codify, and the reason for that eludes me. An uncodified drug shows up in the drug list in ePrescribe in italics. If you right click on the name, you will be be brought to a menu that allows you to codify the drug. If you select that, you get a list from which to choose. And, how would I ever have known that? Because I saw it on this forum a couple of weeks ago. Which brings me back to issue number one, lack of a manual.

As to the refill number, once I entered a lot of medications the way I usually write them, AC remembered my preferences (including number of refills) and now presents them as a short list. I don't know how to turn off the default, but it will be moot if you are patient.

Welcome, Carolyn.
Your quote is so true!. I venture to say that we all went through that; except I wouldn't put it in the past tense; it is an ongoing process.

As David says, support for new users (especially in the form of a users manual) is one of the challenges with AC. The User Board is an excellent source of help; I also echo his advice to post questions freely and often. Searching the board is worth a shot, but the search function is often frustrating.

With regard to shortcuts, in Amazing Charts go to Help -> Contents and search for "shortcuts". You well get a list which you can print or refer to in the future. Some of them are really useful.

Thanks, Jon. Another thing I did not know.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the help. I have been reading the User Board over the last 3 months, however, going live was quite interesting! More learning to come on Monday!

Oh, yeah... going live.

Watch that first step... it's a long one ;-)

I check in here every morning to see if there are any new tips of the trade. What works best is just going live.