No, the electronic prescribing holding/error queue was designed to receive, store and process eRx's. Business rules have been built in the holding/error queue to assist with maintenance. When an electronic prescription reaches 366 days old from the date written, the eRx status changes to Expired and no longer viewable from the holding/error queue. Expired prescriptions older than 15 months are deleted from the underlying database. Processed (Validated) eRx's are associated/linked with the resultant's CHCS prescription and are not deleted. Please see the CHCS Release notes, user guide and training slides for additional information on Validation, Removal and other business rules.

The DOD electronic prescribing intermediary (PDTS) will hold the electronic prescription and will retry to send the eRx to the MTF. When the retry attempts are unsuccessful, the eRx will be sent to the MTF as a fax, if configured, or returned to the civilian provider as undeliverable.

No, clinical screening (if available) on the civilian provider's electronic health record would occur prior to sending the electronic prescription to the ePrescribing network.

CHCS workload will be generated after the electronic prescription results in an actionable CHCS prescription (e.g. print labels, dispense, refill, etc.); this will follow standard CHCS business rules.

Guidance is to follow your MTF policies. The example presented would be similar to when an AHLTA or pharmacy entered prescriptions expires.

Any CHCS prescription may be viewed using the Prescription Inquiry (PRI) option. An indicator to the right of the order number identifies the prescription source. A prescription received as an eRx is identified with indicators of "(eRx SYS - Entered)" or "(eRx PHR - Entered)."

Electronic prescriptions may be printed via the holding/error queue Inquiry function prior to processing (Validated). The use of a specific printer that can be defined in the Outpatient Site parameters; different colored paper and scanning the printed eRx may be logical extensions depending on your pharmacy's policies, processes and workflow. Please see the CHCS Release notes, user guide, and training slides for additional information on PRI screen enhancements, holding queue actions, and other related functionality.

Provider information required for a legal prescription based on local, state and Federal rules, regulations and laws will be received. Generally, the civilian provider's EHR is configured to send the practice name, provider name, street address, city, state, zip code and phone number, as well as the provider's National Provider Identification (NPI) and/or Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) number(s).

Retrieval of electronic prescriptions from a different holding queue may be dependent on current policies and practices for accessing pharmacy sites outside your MTF, Division, and Service.

No, the electronic prescribing solution utilizes a single queue that displays electronic prescriptions based on the selected status (i.e. Pending or Error).

The electronic prescribing solution contains business rules to alert users when a non-formulary or inpatient use only medication is selected. The CHCS Drug portion of the Validate screen displays a "NON-FORMULARY" or "INPATIENT ONLY" indicator. The business rules do not take into account a populated Inactive Date. The identification and maintenance of non-formulary medications listings in CHCS facilitate increased auto-creation and accurate alerts. Please see the CHCS Release notes, user guide, and training slides for additional information on drug auto-matching, holding queue actions and other related functionality.

Yes, the DHA Pharmacy Operations Division and Beneficiary Education and Support Division are working through the plans to notify and educate patients and providers when the electronic prescribing solution has been successfully activated by all MTFs in the United States.

An Enterprise formulary tool is available for use by the MTF pharmacies at no additional cost. The tool is currently provided through the Electronic Clinical Reference contract (LexiComp® is the current vendor).

For MTF pharmacies that current accept prescriptions from civilian providers, the minimum number is one, while the maximum is scalable to accommodate the business practices of each MTF. As with faxed prescriptions, ePrescribing enables the prescription to reach the pharmacy prior to the patient arriving; therefore allowing greater flexibility with how, when, and where to process.

The eRx business rules for patients are First/Last names, DOB, and gender. All these must match along with the one of the following identifiers; DOD ID, SSN, or street address. Once a patient is found, an indicator of "Match Found" will be displayed in the "Validate eRx Patient" screen. Please refer to the eRx User Guide for more information.

When an eRx has been Validated, the result is an actionable prescription and may be processed in the same manner as prescriptions received from AHLTA or entered by the pharmacy staff.