Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations three sites, one AC address, ERx?

We are a small provider group. We have providers who are each based in three physical locations. We have only one Amazing Charts license and one main computer so that we can share our patient database amongst the three offices (patients often go between offices and providers). The problem is that because Amazing Charts only lets you have one address, the eprescribe address,fax, and phone are incorrect for the other two offices!
I have contacted AC and they tell me that in fact only one address is allowed per license, if we bought more than one license (one per office), then we get three databases.

Is anyone else in this situation? What solution, if any, have you come to?

I called the DEA this morning to figure out if they have a problem with this: Prescriptions, eprescriptions being written with the wrong physical address/ not the registered address. I don't think that the person I talked to understood my question fully because the answer that I got was that you only have to register your main address with the DEA. But in this case, we are having prescriptions written under an address that the provider never practices in.

thanks!

What you are running into is a limitation of AC as currently written - it only provides for one physical location. Hopefully this will be addressed soon, in the meanwhile, there are work-arounds.

Several of the practices that we support are multi-location, and they deal with the constraint in a variety of ways, depending on their specifics.

Some choose to use different technology for scheduling that handles multiple locations, some just use the 'main' address.

You might want to consider choosing a location that all of the providers can see patients at from time to time, and make that the 'main' address, if the address is the primary issue.

Would you mind giving me an example for what you mean by this?
thanks

Some of the better Revenue Cycle Management outfits provide a multi-location scheduler so that you can centralize [or not] scheduling in front of AC, and when it comes time to do billing, they are comparing scheduled to billed so that visits don't 'fall out' of the front side.

So, by doing the scheduling there, you get a dual benefit.

SWheaton,
AC tends to be pretty generous when it comes to charging for licenses, but how do you only have one license when you have multiple providers who each e-prescribe? Perhaps that is part of the problem.

I think Jon is correct. AC support informed you that you need at least one license for one address. Basically, you need one license for each provider including mid-levels. Your MAs can prescriptions under you. So, by default, your other locations must have physicians and, therefore, need licenses, and, therefore, you would be able to have a different address.

AC is likely the lease expensive EMR hands down or close, but they can't allow one license for three locations and multiple physicians.

Apparently they (AC) have to pay Newcrop or Allscripts by the site. My understanding is that this fee IS NOT cheap (possibly several hundred dollars) and is rolled into your maintenance fee.

So if you have more than one site, it will cause problems if they are not on the same database. ?Newcrops (not sure who, but outside of AC) noted different addresses and were going to shut my prescribing down unless I upgraded.


Thus, I had to upgrade to 2 licenses, one for each site. One problem I continue to have is that all the refills still only go to the original license and the other one remains dormant.

DEA requires one address even if you have multiple locations. That's why the person said your Main address, even if they are written from several locations.

Wendell:

My question to you becomes then how do you make the two databases sync with each other?

I believe he has one database.

They don't sync. They are completely independent and I remote in when I need to.

Remoting is by combination of LogMeIn and Remote Desktop, depending on the computer.

I have looked into combining the databases, but unless I go in the cloud I would still have to sync them and reliability would be a problem.

Sounds easier than a vulcan mind-meld. Of course, you can't do that through LMI. :P

Sorry, flu season kept me to busy to get back here. Each provider has their license, we aren't cheating on that. But we all need to share one database, our patients go freely from place to place, so we are stuck with one address.

Bert and Jon, from what AC has told me, one database= one address, the number of licenses doesn't matter.

Wendell, that is what I am worried about, I'm worried that the DEA or surescripts will be confused as to why providers whose DEA says address one, are sending escripts from address two. I'm trying to figure out if there is any kind of violation.

I don't think that the remoting into the other database will work for us at all, too many providers, too complicated. anybody know anyone who has made this work?

thanks

A separate registration is required for each principal place of business or professional practice where controlled substances are stored, administered, or dispensed by a person. If a practitioner will only be prescribing from another location(s) situated within the same state, then an additional registration is not necessary.
Does this help right, from the DEA info site don't think you need to worry about it

sWheaton,
Sorry if I misunderstood. Your initial post says "We have only one Amazing Charts license" so I think you can see why we reached that conclusion...

I would agree with Koby that you need not worry.

Hope it is getting solved. I am going to email AC and see if they can straighten this all for everyone so we all understand it. No one will get in trouble and it will be a benefit from here forward.

yep, clearly I mispoke at first, one database, multiple licenses.

When I contacted the DEA, that's the statement that they gave me as well. So maybe they don't care.

Now, I'm trying to figure out what to do about the problem that the pharmacies are receiving Erx with the address,phone of Site A, when really the provider and chart are at Site B or Site C, so someone has to bounce all the faxes to the other office, which adds time onto the processing time for the request.

I think that Updox can help us with this problem.

The RX renewals are so irregular, we are doing still 90% of refill requests via pharmacy fax. Also the majority of our providers are resisting using the system at all and refusing to manage renewals on Amazing charts. I find the renewal page frustrating to use, so many clicks, match the rx, view the chart to see if the renewal should be granted clinically. Our patient base, and the owners of our practice are not interested in forcing a visit for all refills.

Anyhow, I know that some of you on this board have the ear of the Amazing Charts developers. Please ask them to build Amazing Charts to allow different addresses and phone numbers for providers on the same database. And, someone please take a look at that renewal page, it is not user friendly!

I would certainly agree with that. To be honest, I have never bothered to set up automatic refills in AC. Refill requests arrive by fax into UpDox. I simply delete them if they are not to be refilled, or right click on the patient in AC and refill them if they are. I do this without the multiple locations and other issues you mention, and I still find it to be efficient. You might find it even more so.

I know of only one person here who has that distinction. I believe that V6.5 will include changes to the eRx registration process.