Home Forums Discussions Problems Had to turn off interraction portion of prescription writer this am

This morning is the first major problem I have had with AC. I couldnt send any rx's out as they were being rejected. The online medication interraction whatchamathigger was recoverring from a superbowl hangover....I turned off that section and it corrected....now Dr. Obama will know that I am no longer MU compliant....

I had interaction checking turned off, and eRx was still not working most of the morning. I couldn't even get directly onto NewCrop. I think it was a SureScripts problem.

Maybe it is a regional thing. eRx, interaction check, formulary check all working here today.

It wasn't SureScripts.
Could not send rx this morning with AC and NewCrop, but switched to Allscripts and sent it fine, so the SureScripts network was not the problem.
It was the dreaded NewCrap again!

OK, I am tired, but I am not following your logic, Donna.

I think even Allscrips uses the Surescrips backbone so if it went through there then the surescrips must work - hence blame newcrop.

Hello Everyone,

Unfortunately New Crop was unable to process script requests or check interactions for about 90 minutes yesterday. Going forward, we will be posting notifications for E-Rx outages as soon as we can.

We are truly sorry for the inconvenience and Thank You for your continued support.

Craig@AC

My opinion is that NewCrop has an unacceptable number of problems/outages.

I will ask again, why has AC partnered with this sub-par prescribing program when there are better, more elegant, never failed and even free programs available? Part of our AC license fee is the fee for NewCrop. How much is it, and is NewCrop really worth it?

It may be time for a little protest.....If newcrop cannot give us what we desereve, then AC needs to hear about it in NUMBERS....
Maybe AC doesnt understand ...let me tell ya....when a little old lady doesnt get her pills on time, nothing, and I MEAN NOTHING is more important - and she will let you know that. I really dont like to lose my temper, but if we have another problem then we should ask for money back for substandard service from newcrop....

LOL.... Those LOL's will nail ya every time now won't they....

Do you FP's and IM's still use that as a shorthand for "Little Old Lady" as my wife taught me years ago in residency???

Paul

How about when a screaming toddler can't get theirs? That may be something Jon B is even more sensitive to. He has said that he has a history with NewCrop but is not wedded to them for life. A series of brief emails (and messages here) expressing dissatisfaction might catch his attention.

I also had problems yesterday morning and again yesterday afternoon. The other consequence is that we are not getting the MU credit for eprescribing when we have to print them out or fax them.

Leslie,

My solution is simply to switch to my free Allscripts and send them electronically. Then there is no fax/print in AC to be counted against me. I make a note in the patient's chart that I sent it via Allscripts. If I need to produce the documentation, I can.

The free Allscripts is still available to every US physician.

In the 6 years that I have had the Allscripts, I can remember one brief service outage. In the 15 months that I have been using AC, there have been multiple outages with NewCrop, not a good track record.

Same errors again this morning.

Hello,

Yes indeed, there was brief issue again this morning involving their server's transaction log and it was resolved immediately.

We are diligently working with New Crop to prevent further hiccups in service.

Again we apologize for the inconvenience and Thank You for your continued support.

Craig@AC

Craig,
How much is the per provider license fee that AC pays to NewCrop?

These are not "hiccups"; they are major disruptions to a medical practice when one cannot prescribe.

I agree Craig...we need action...I can fix hiccups with thorazine...but thats why I have AC to fix Newcrop...so please fix it...it is time to turn up the heat on Newcrop....respectfully speaking

So hopefully this is one of the times where it is really helpful to have AC staff on the board. Craig, please pass the word along that many of us here are very unhappy with the frequency of disruptions caused by NewCrop. And apparently there are other available alternatives that work better. Any feedback about this would be appreciated.

I thought we were going to lose a computer yesterday due to slow drug interaction checking and an overly stressed doc.

Barb

Hello,

I have escalated this issue and Dr. Bertman will be posting a response shortly.

Thank You for your continued support,

Craig@AC

As described above (and some before this), New Crop has had some outages of late. As of last night, I was assured that they tracked down the problem and were confident it won?t happen again.

In fairness, only sometimes is this a New Crop issue. Sometimes it is Sure Scripts issue (like that Wal-Mart weirdness a few months back), and sometimes it is our issue (like that V6.0 slow-med-window weirdness a few months back).

New Crop is a company we?ve grown with, and both of us have had (and sometimes still have) growing pains. But they are a good group of guys and gals, working for the betterment of the healthcare system. So I believe they deserve some slack - which they've now used. Since having a usable EHR means having always available ePrescribing, they (and us) can either get the job done in a usable, consistent, and affordable manner ? or they/we can?t.

So, yes, Amazing Charts has begun a dialogue with a few other potential partners. Historically, other companies charged EHR-like ludicrous prices as if it is some ?privilege that physicians must pay extra to do.? We, of course, think this is ridiculous. We write scripts because we're providing appropriate care, based on solid evidence. (At least more times than not, hopefully). So we won't work with companies that have this "privilege" mentality.

But like it or not, the recent outages are both frustrating and concerning, and we are exploring alternatives. (Though knowing NewCrop, I am hopeful Plan B won't be needed.)

Jon,
Your input is appreciated.

NewCrop really has some issues that keep it from being ideal prescribing software. Having to switch from an excellent free program to NewCrop has been a bit frustrating for me.

Do you have some line of communication to work with NewCrop for desired improvements? One of the big ones, often noted on the board, is the ability to save both a local and a mail away pharmacy. Another is to improve the drug lists so that all the combos don't come up before the lone drug (ie HCTZ). Having to go into the NewCrop screens at times to find the receiving pharmacy and a complete drug list including other prescribers' rx is cumbersome.

There are a number of other requests suggested by AC users which would make NewCrop much more user friendly.

These frustrations are on our list, and are ours to fix, not New Crops.

Thank you, Jon.

I guess I don't understand which functions are NewCrop versus AC. Apparently, my irritation with NewCrop is somewhat misdirected.

It might be helpful to have a brief explanation of how NewCrop integrates with AC. Then, we could properly direct our suggested improvements.

The med window, and its function, are all Amazing Charts. We control our Graphical User Interface (GUI or UI). We transmit data to and from New Crop (securely, of course), and they do the "data crunching" on their side, such as drug-drug interactions, etc.

Our UI needs work, as New Crop does provide us the means to do some cool things, which we just haven't gotten around to doing yet. That's all us.

One can also go through the New Crop windows/website from within Amazing Charts. Their website we have no control over.

Thank you Dr. Bertman....after reading this my seriously bad on-call weekend doesnt seem so bad or complicated at all...thanks for looking out for us as we are all trying to provide quality/timely medical care and sometimes those two entities fight each other...thanks again...todd