New York state will start requiring paperless prescriptions starting this month, which will end doctors' scribbled orders for pharmaceutical drugs. Physicians will be required to submit electronic prescriptions to pharmacies for almost all medicines including painkillers and antibiotics. Medical practitioners who fail to use the e-prescribing system could face high fines, jail time, or license loss.
The strict Rx rules have many goals including reducing errors, battling painkiller abuse, and using a convenient system for doctors and patients, according NBC New York.
In addition, digital prescriptions prevent other issues such as forgery and theft. They also end the need for patients to drop off scripts, and allow doctors to review other meds a patient is taking, and insurance details.
Studies also show that electronic prescriptions cause medication errors to drop. One reason is that pharmacists do not have to decode doctors' messy handwriting, which the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports daily causes at least one death and yearly results in 1.3 million injuries.
However, some NY doctors oppose the digital scripts. They argue they could cause problems for some patients, and doctors should not be punished for using a certain prescription format.
Dr. Steven Stack is president of the American Medical Association. He explains that e-prescribing should be more available, but it should not be required in some situations. For example, patients could send a prescription to a closed pharmacy or one that is out of stock of a drug by the time they arrive.
In recent years electronic prescriptions have spiked throughout the US in a goal to digitize patients' medical records. Paul Uhrig is chief administrative office of the e-prescription transmitting network Surescripts. He explains that around 60 percent of all prescriptions are sent electronically.
All US states now permit e-prescribing. Minnesota requires digital scripts but does not penalize doctors for not using them, while New York is the only state that penalizes physicians for not using e-prescribing.
In related news an Express Scripts report shows the average cost of name brand prescription drugs has almost doubled during the past five years, according to Chicago Tribune. During last year alone the prices of branded drugs spiked by 16.2 percent.
Here are some benefits of e-subscribing: