Home Forums Discussions Problems CVS using faxes rather than erxs to request prescription refills

I'm seeing an increase in prescriptions requested by fax from various CVS's that could have been requested electronically. Anybody else seeing this? I wonder if some link is broke and the requests are falling back to fax. These aren't controlled rxs. I am able to send erx to CVS just fine.

Pharmacies have to pay for eRx, but not for faxes, as I understand the system.
Maybe they are trying to save money?

That's probably true. I remember back in 2009, I was working with a local pharmacist and he hated ePrescriptions. There are a lot of errors and inconsistent coding across EHR's means they have to retype them all anyways. They used to pay 30 cents per ePrescription. If you make a mistake and have to resend it, they had to pay again. They loved faxes though. Those are free.

CVS filled 1.2 billion prescriptions last year. If they paid 30 cents for half of those prescriptions, that would've cost them 180 million.

Now wouldn't that be a nice pocket of cash for offering less than fully integrated beta software, imagine no problems at night knowing you continue to make a boat load while sleeping. sarc/off

I had this problem with CVS and when I called to try to straighten it out, they told be it was bcause the eRX would not go through on their side and the CVS systme defaults to fax Had to scream bloody murder at both CVS and beseech AC to help, which they did
the AC person had to open a surescripts case and something on the CVS end was not updating
I don't know how they fixed it nor don't care but it took a lot of calls and complaining.

The paying of eRxs per eRxs is only an issue for small mom and pop pharmacies. No way does RiteAid and CVS and Hannaford pay per script. They just have a one-time fee. Otherwise, they would certainly complain when I send five scripts by themselves, then another one canceling them all.

I guess pediatrics is different. And, I guess my nurse doesn't know. She does all the electronic refills. I wouldn't even do those if I had my way. But, when I see a fax request, I just delete it. The patient will call. I know I call my doctor.

But, I suppose with FP/Int, there are a lot more refills.