Home Forums Discussions Feedback and Recommendations Medication issue

For past prescribed meds the meds page records the refill date. It does not record the details of the script. I have practice with a lot of patients with headache and other pains. These patients require intermittant short scripts for breakthrough pain. I have frequently been in a spot not knowing how much I prescribed. :oops:
I would request a tracking of the entire prescription and not just the date.
How are the other users dealing with this issue? ... Thank you in advance for your responses.

Zak,

I am not sure if I completely understand your question. If you are referring to looking at medications either past or current from the summary page or on the left side of the prescription writer, then no you can't read the amount. But, if you click on any medication in the prescription writer so it loads again into the middle of the prescription writer, you can see the amount prescribed.

If it doesn't, then there is something wrong with the setup. Let me know if this helps.

The last one does come up upon clicking the med on the left. But the prior scripts and details don't. Example: Prescribed 30 of XYZ for breakthrough headaches for PRN use. Pt. over uses and runs short before next appointment. Prescribe 5 tabs of XYZ till next appointment. Refill 30 of XYZ again on next routine appointment. Thank you.

Zak,

I apologize that I am not able to reproduce your error. Or maybe I still don't follow exactly what is going wrong. I haven't had that problem in almost three years, but maybe I don't know what you are doing. If you would like, you could email me directly -- it may be easier with JPGs or a remote connection.

Sorry again. Saga: Patient comes in for headache on 01/01/06: I prescribe 10 tabs of xyz for severe headache to last a month until next appointment. He calls on 01/20/06 saying he had to use up all the meds for severe recurrent headaches. My nurse takes message and prints/faxes a script for 5 tabs of xyz until I see him for his next appointment. I see him on on 02/01/06, and refill 10 tabs of xyz for the month of 02. He calls again on the 02/15/06 and has used all of his meds.
Looking back in AC on 02/15/06, I have records of the days refills were written but I have no idea how much was prescribed on 01/20/06(and for that case on 01/01/06). Following such patients over time causes a lot of confusion.

Zak,

OK, I "think" I see your problem. It sounds as if everytime you give him more medication, you are simply clicking on the medication from the left hand column. That brings the medication over to the prescription writer in the middle. But, then as you change the prescription for xyz as you indicated in your last post, your medication is overwritten. There would be no way for you to know how many you prescribed at your last visit or the sig for that matter.

Try doing it this way. Each time patient "x" calls for a new script, go into your prescription writer (here on in referred to as pw), and INACTIVATE the medication. In other words click on it so it comes over to the pw, the click on INACTIVATE. You can even write in the little yellow box why you inacitivated it, i.e. patient needed more medications due to stress from work. Now the script is placed in your inactive list, because that script is indeed inactive.

Now click on Add New Med, and make a new prescription. Keep doing this, and you will have an audit trail in your inanactive section. When he comes in, you can either look at your inactive section to see what you prescribed before or, alterernatively, you can click on "Show All" and see all of the medications at once.

One last way to do it but not as accurate. Everytime you prescribe him xyz, you can click on "Add New" and put in a new medication. This will keep all of his xyz meds on your active side so you can see them, but it isn't as accurate due to it isn't really active. NEVER EVER delete the medication UNLESS it was a mistake to begin with.

I hope I understood your problem. Play around with it, and please get back to me. Feel free to click on My Email button if you want to talk offline. Good luck

Inactivating the medication requires the prescriber to re-enter the medication. This is not very time efficient if it is anticipated the patient may need more of it in the future. If it is a one time medication such as an antibiotic for an acute illness, rather than a pain medication used on an as needed basis this would make sense. It would be beneficial to have a "refill button" so all the previous script information is not overwritten with the new script information and then the medication does not actually need to be inactivated and re-entered.

NY_FNP and Zak,

Eureka! I finally get what you both are saying. And, you are right. That would be a good feature. I would email Jonathan with that as the newest release is till in Beta and maybe he could add that. I guess as a pediatrician, I don't write too many chronic pain meds, although I do write a ton of stimulants. You would think I would have come across this before.

The only workaround I could come up with (and it's a terrible workaround that I apologize in advance for even mentioning it), is to print to PDF or use the Export button to save the script to a folder and then either keep it there or import it to the record. But, that takes a few clicks and wastes time.

I would send it to Jonathan as something that should be added.

I have been dealing with the same issue, I prescribe a lot of Stimulants for ADHD kids and its important to keep a unchangable and accurate record of all scripts. I AZ can save the printed/faxed scripts to the imported items just like it saves printed/faxed letters ideally with an automatic notation "Priscription".

OK, since I have been no help here in the past, I have researched and maybe come up with a workaround that seems helpful. I know that there are more pdf drivers out there than Microsoft patches, but I think I have found one that could be useful.

When printing a prescription where you need to have a complete chronological record, rather than just printing to paper, click on the DocuCom PDF driver, http://www.pdfwizard.com/eng/include/index.asp.
You can then browse to the folder you wish to save the PDF version of the script (probably on the server) with a shortcut to every desktop. After, you can either write out the script if it is a controlled substance or print it to paper or fax it. The nice thing about this particular pdf driver besides being very fast is the following:

Once you save a pdf version of a script and name it say, Appleseed, Johnny; most pdf drivers when trying to print there again would try to overwrite the file. This would mean having to name the file something different with a 001 at the end or a date, which would take up valuable time. With DocuCom, if the file is alread in the folder, you can click on it and it puts the file name in the window. It then recognizes it as the same name and brings up a window with a multitude of options as to how to save it without overwrite. The best method is to annotate it. Clicking there combines the two files so that if you save multiple medications to the same patient, you will have one file with all of the scripts recorded in chronological order of prescribing. Of course, these can be imported, although given the many clicks this requires, I don't think it is necessary, but others may.

It does have a 30-day trial period for all of the DocuCom drivers. We just use the basic one.

I would just like to make one editorial comment about our wish lists, etc. I would love to see the above ideas incorporated into AC as well as a tickler file/tasks list. I see many requests about it. I always have to remember that when we purchased AmazingCharts awhile back, it was only $250.00. Sure, other EMRs have the above features and very sophisticated tickler files, etc. but these EMRs, like Logician, start off at nearly $40,000.00, which is what we were quoted for a two-person office. I think Jon is working on it. I do wish there were more emphasis on clinical features in AC, rather than working on the billing aspects. Also, I find the message boards extremely helpful when trading ideas and answering questions, but it seems as though many of the ideas providers come up with in the wish lists are not being addressed.

I would love to hear any feedback.

Just go to the "Past Encounters" tab on the records and scroll down to the bottom part of the note and you will see how much you prescribed and what you ordered.

I had the same problem until I realized that if I am not just refilling the same scrip -- you should deactivate it and write a new scrip. If you are refilling chronic pain meds you should just refill - you then have to look in the inactive med list to get details. Otherwise every note you write with a scrip will store the details on the note.

I totally agree with needing an easy way to keep track of Schedule 2 medications. One of the writers is correct, if I go in an renew or refill, all I have a record of is the date but not the exact amount I gave the patient. I have not gone completely paperless so I print two copies - one for the patient to take to the pharamcy and the other one I sign chart copy. I also have the patient sign the chart copy to have a record that he/she received the script.

There has got to be an easier way. If we could send each script to imported data EASILY, that would be a great place to keep track without having to do a separate Excel spread sheet etc.

Try printing it to a PDF file and saving it in imported items as other until a better solution is found.