NY Times: The End of Prescriptions as we Know Them in New York

[LiberalElite]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/nyregion/new-york-to-discard-prescription-pads-and-doctors-handwriting-in-digital-shift.html

snip
One morning this month, Silvia Cota, a nurse supervisor in the emergency room at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, gathered her nurses together in a huddle to prepare them for the future.
From Our Advertisers

“It really is not a complicated thing,” Ms. Cota told them, speaking loudly over the bustle of patients and emergency room staff. “We just have to get used to it.”

Starting on March 27, the way prescriptions are written in New York State will change. Gone will be doctors’ prescription pads and famously bad handwriting. In their place: pointing and clicking, as prescriptions are created electronically and zapped straight to pharmacies in all but the most exceptional circumstances.
snip

xposted in New York

[Archae]

1. The Marsho Clinic here in Sheboygan already does this.

My Doc is there, and his prescriptions get printed out on computer paper.

Others are approved electronically.

[HDSam]

2. The VA

has been doing this for awhile now. A VA doctor enters the prescription in the system, I go to the inhouse pharmacy and pick it up. I also request refills online through the VA Healthevet website and they're mailed and in my hands in a couple days. It's the same on the rare occasion I see a private practitioner, I just tell them which pharmacy and go pick it up.

[CC]

3. All of my doctors already

do this. They will find it is easier, safer and more efficient.

[hedda_foil]

4. My doctors do it and it's great.

I can pick up the meds at the drugstore on my way home from the doctor's office.

[Ruby the Liberal]

5. I welcome this

2 years ago, after surgery, I had to physically go to the Doc's office to pick up a physical prescription for a mild painkiller. Take it to the pharmacy and wait the obligatory 30 minutes for them to fill it (they want you shopping, not curled up in pain by the counter, but its always "30 minutes"...).

After I got home and looked, that "in person only" script was the same tylenol/codeine mix that my dentist had called in for me not 1 year prior.

I would LOVE to not have to go through that all again.

[Nevernose]

9. No kidding.

I understand why Fentanyl and Oxy and stuff require extra (reasonable) precaution, but many doctors in my area (at least those in the quick clinics) refuse to prescribe things like codeine cough syrup or Tylenol 2. It's paranoid and nuts, and really does nothing to help with opiate addiction.

Codeine's OTC in most countries, for God's sake.

[Ghost in the Machine]

6. They have been doing that here in TN for a couple of years, except for Schedule 2 narcotic pain

killers, any ADHD meds (which are pretty much legal meth) or amphetamine diet pills, and some schedule 4s, like Xanax or Valium. You HAVE to carry the hard copy prescription in with you to the pharmacy, but a lot of them are now computer generated instead of the little prescription pads.

Peace,

Ghost

[Avalon Sparks]

10. I'm on adderall

It's nothing like meth.....or any other kind of illegal speed, it's also not even close to diet pills, including diet pills available over the counter.

[Ghost in the Machine]

11. People around here crush & snort adderall & ritalin to get high.... n/t

[Avalon Sparks]

12. Used as prescribed for ADHD...

They are the difference between a life of chaos and anxiety, and order and calmness. I've taken a low does for a number of years with no ill effects, and no change in dosage without building up a tolerance or need for a higher level for the same effect. I can't stop people from abusing them anymore I then other substances that folks take to the extreme. I am sensitive though when people throw comparisons around carelessly. The majority of adults with ADHD take the medicine responsibly, and for them the effects are in no way similar to a meth high.

[Bjornsdotter]

7. My doctors

...already do this and have for years.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Is NYC behind the times? All my orders are done electronically

and if there is a need for a "written one" it is a printout.

[LiberalElite]

19. I guess the entire

state is. This isn't only about NYC.

[JHB]

13. I'm right across the Hudson, and my doctor has been doing this for years

[Humanist_Activist]

14. Our doctors have been electronically sending them for years, I guess welcome to the...

21st century New York!

[leftyladyfrommo]

15. I think my doctor already does that. nt

[briv1016]

16. It's really only going to be an issue for older doctors. (Say over 50.)

Most of my doctors already do this.

[Brickbat]

17. It's not NYTworthy until it happens in Manhattan.

[meow2u3]

18. My doctors in Pennsylvania already zap my scrips to my pharmacy

Except for controlled substance prescriptions, my doctors digitally send my prescriptions directly to my pharmacy. The pharmacy fills them and I pick them up with less wait time. The only exception is Schedule II scrips.