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Now that the DEA is allowing electronic prescriptions for controlled substances, has anyone heard when New crop will be ready for this?

As far as I have read there is no accepted electronic formats as they are still working on finalizing methods of verification and how this is going to be accomplished.

I believe it varies by state.

Technically the DEA trumps their rules and state that you currently cannot send Schedule II-V by electronic means. It is very confusing.

Here is a link to the DEA site that describes the program:
http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/ecomm/e_rx/faq/practitioners.htm

Two excerpts:
"DEA?s rule, ?Electronic Prescriptions for Controlled Substances? revises DEA?s regulations to provide practitioners with the option of writing prescriptions for controlled substances electronically."
and
"In addition, electronic prescriptions for controlled substances may be subject to state laws and regulations. If state requirements are more stringent than DEA?s regulations, the state requirements would supersede any less stringent DEA provision."

So the DEA says it is OK, and there may be state laws that supersede the feds.

At this point, it makes no difference. The DEA says it can be done if the EMR is in accordance with certain guidelines. Guidelines which essentially have not been written yet.

I transmitted a controlled substance prescription yesterday in error. I was surprised that it just went through so easily. We called the drug store to cancel it. My day was very busy and I just hit transmit instead of print. The patient's other scripts go electronically and the pharmacy was already selected, etc.

When I try it here in New Mexico I get a message that says something to the effect of "sorry, can't send schedule II-V substances". Hopefully, this will change someday.

They did not go through for me either in IL.

When we called the pharmacy, they said it was okay as they wouldn't fill it anyway. Today I accidentally did it again and the pharmacy called to tell me that it needed printed script. They went through fine. Just not supposed to be transmitted that way at this point. I'm in NYS.

When I send a scheduled drug through the AC eRx, I receive a fax back from Surescripts with the med details, which I can sign and fax back to the pharmacy.