Benefits of ePrescribing

The benefits of ePrescribing touch all healthcare system participants, including physicians, patients, physician networks, payers and pharmacies. Emdeon ePrescribing's benefits include:

Increased Safety - Each year, approximately 1.5 million patients are injured by preventable medication errors. Physicians who ePrescribe submit prescriptions electronically in a standard format, thus reducing the need to interpret handwriting and minimizing costly medication errors.

Increased Productivity - ePrescribing means fewer phone calls between pharmacies and physicians regarding handwriting interpretation, non-covered drugs and prior authorization requirements. Prescriptions, whether new or refill requests, received electronically also reduce the time pharmacy and physician personnel spend entering data. Both benefits translate into more time for patient care.

Greater Patient Satisfaction - For patients, ePrescribing results in a more efficient prescription process that typically enables new prescriptions to be ready upon patient arrival at the pharmacy, eliminates multiple trips to the pharmacy and reduces time spent waiting for replies from physicians for refills or questions.

Lower Medication Costs - ePrescribing further increases patient satisfaction by allowing physicians to better manage patient medication costs. In most cases, through electronic prescriptions, physicians may prescribe insurance-covered medications by accessing insurance plan information. As a result, patients are able to realize decreased out-of-pocket costs.

Greater Patient Compliance - The hassle of dropping off a prescription and waiting for it to be filled is one of the predominant reasons that an estimated 20% of all paper prescriptions go unfilled. Electronic prescriptions sent directly to the pharmacy result in greater patient compliance -- a fact that is supported by recent research indicating physicians who begin ePrescribing generally see 11% more of their prescriptions get dispensed.

Improved Health Outcomes - Yet another benefit for physicians who choose to ePrescribe is better patient health outcomes. Not only does ePrescribing improve quality and efficiency, but it reduces costs by promoting appropriate drug usage. It also provides information about formulary based drug coverage, and speeds up the process of renewing medications.