IMPORTANT The Australian Digital Health Agency is phasing out older versions of the Electronic Prescribing Conformance profile. To ensure that eScripts continue to work after 30 September 2024, your practice must have upgraded to Bp Premier version Orchid SP1 or later.
This article describes how to send an electronic prescription from the patient record using Bp Premier.
The process of creating an electronic prescription is the same. However, when printing the script, you can choose to send the patient an 'electronic script token' by SMS, email, Best Health App, or printed to blank paper.
You can either print a script to paper as normal, or send as an electronic script, but not both. Either option will mark the scripts as 'printed'.
For more information, review the Frequently Asked Questions about electronic prescribing in Bp Premier.
To issue paper or electronic scripts, all prescribers must be registered and configured with the National Prescription Delivery Service (eRx Script Exchange).
See Configure eRx Script Exchange for more information.
Important Updates on the National Prescription Delivery Service
The Department of Health and Aged Care's new National Prescription Delivery Service commenced on 1 July 2023. Conformance requirements for the National Prescription Delivery Service require that as of 30 September 2023, to create and send eligible prescriptions, prescribers must be connected to eRx Script Exchange and use Bp Premier version Orchid SP1 or later.
The Department of Health and Aged Care has advised that for those still connected to MediSecure, the connection will be switched off from 9 November 2023. The following will apply to all prescribers, including those who have successfully connected to eRx as of this date:
- Any prescriptions originally generated in MediSecure will no longer be able to be cancelled, ceased, or deleted in Bp Premier.
- If a prescription originally generated in MediSecure needs to be cancelled, ceased, or deleted, prescribers must contact eRx at support@erx.com.au with the subject 'URGENT SCRIPT' for this to be actioned.
- Any prescriber still connected to MediSecure will be unable to create new prescriptions, and will receive an error message in Bp Premier if attempting to.
- Prescribers who have not yet registered and configured eRx with Bp Premier must do so immediately if they want to continue prescribing PBS drugs electronically, or they must seek to prescribe using alternative methods, such as handwritten, hand signed scripts that do not contain a barcode or QR code.
If a prescriber attempts to create a new PBS prescription in Bp Premier using MediSecure, they will be unable to and will receive an error message.
See National Prescription Delivery Service FAQ for more information.
- Select Rx from the patient record and create a prescription as per usual. You can also send an existing repeat Rx by electronic script.
- Tick the check box next to the drug that you want to send an electronic prescription token for. You can select multiple scripts; all selected scripts will be sent by the same method.
- Select the method for sending the electronic prescription token from the Token: drop-down menu.
- Paper — Prints the token to a blank sheet of paper. The paper cannot be a preprinted template.
- SMS (default) — Sends the token to the phone number recorded in the patient demographics.
- SMS (Other) — Sends the token to a phone number entered by the prescriber, for example, to a carer. Bp Premier will remember the number entered here for the duration of the current visit only.
- Email (default) — Sends the token to the email address recorded in the patient demographics.
- Email (Other) — Sends the token to an alternate email address entered by the prescriber.
- App — Send the token to the Best Health App if the patient is enrolled.
- MySL — The token is sent to the patient's MySL record. This option is only available if the Prescriber has existing access to view the MySL record of the patient. When the MySL token is selected from the token drop-down menu and the eScript button is clicked, no evidence of the prescription is created— this means no paper, email, or SMS tokens are sent to the Patient.
- Click eScript to send.
- If you have prescribed a schedule 8 drug, you will be prompted to re-enter your Bp Premier password. Re-enter your password and click OK.
- If you selected 'SMS (Other)' or 'Email (Other)', Bp Premier will prompt to enter the phone number or email address to send to. Enter a number with no spaces or an email address, and click Continue.
- The Verify eScript screen will appear. Check that the information provided for the script or scripts being sent is correct, then click Send.
- If the electronic prescription is successfully received by the prescription exchange service, Bp Premier will show a success alert.
The eScript button will become available in the patient record after electronic prescribing has been enabled.
The options are:
NOTE If printing the token to paper, you may wish to explain that the printed token is an evidence of prescription only, and not the actual script they may be used to receiving.
If electronic prescribing has not been correctly configured, an alert will appear indicating which information is required in order for electronic prescribing to work.
If the electronic prescription was not successfully sent, or the attempt times out, Bp Premier will report an error.
IMPORTANT If an error occurs when sending the electronic prescription, Bp Premier will automatically print the script to preprinted paper by default and mark the script as printed.
If sending by SMS or email, the number or email address will receive a message with a hyperlink in it only a few seconds after being sent from Bp Premier. The receiver must click the hyperlink on their device to view the token, which will contain a QR code that can be scanned at or forwarded to the pharmacy.
If sending by via the Best Health App, the patient will receive the message in the app inbox.
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NOTE If the patient has third-party apps on their device that can be used to display electronic prescription tokens (for example, a pharmacy app), the token may open in the third-party app instead. This depends on the operating system configuration of those apps. When the patient receives the token via the Best Health App for the first time, they can choose how they would like to open their token. They will still be able to obtain their script.
Changes to script details, such as the number of tablets or an authority addition, will not be made to the original token. If you need to make changes to a script sent by an electronic prescription token, you will need to cancel the original token, recreate the script, and send a new token.
You can prescribe schedule 8 drugs as electronic prescriptions, as there are no restrictions on medications that can be prescribed this way. However, you will be required to re-enter your usual Bp Premier password when prescribing schedule 8 drugs as electronic prescriptions.
When re-entering your password, if you enter the password incorrectly more times than what is specified under User lockout threshold in the Security Configuration screen, then the script will be printed instead of sent as an electronic prescription.
If Bp Premier is inactive for a longer period of time than what is specified under User inactivity timeout in the Security Configuration screen, and you then attempt to send an electronic prescription, you will be asked to revalidate your Bp Premier password.
Re-enter your password and click OK to send the electronic prescription.
If you click Cancel, you will be able to print the script, but you will not be able to send electronic prescriptions until your password is revalidated.
Orchid SP1 has introduced new options for specifying whether a pharmacy should retain a prescription.
- Dosing Point refers to a doctor nominating or arranging for a patient's medication to be held in the pharmacy instead of allowing the full supply to be taken.
- Staged supply is used when the medication needs to be dispensed in stages, such as when the patient is receiving chemotherapy or has a complex medication regimen.
- Direction is a requirement for jurisdictional regulatory teams and was only available for MediSecure.
- Repeats on file is used to indicate that repeats should be kept on file for monitored drugs in compliance with Tasmanian requirements.
You can preview an electronic script before sending the token to the patient.
- Select the Token: send method for the script.
- Right-click the script you want to preview and select Preview eScript.
- Check the information is correct and click Send.
You can cancel a current or past electronic prescription that has been prescribed incorrectly. An electronic prescription can only be cancelled by the doctor who originally prescribed it.
Cancel a Current Rx
- If you have prescribed a medication and the medication is still in the Current Rx window, click Delete. The Cease Rx window will appear.
- Select a Reason for cessation and click Delete.
- An update will be sent immediately to the Prescription Exchange System that the medication is ceased. When scanning the barcode at the pharmacy, a 'Cancelled at provider's request' message will be returned.
Cancel a Past Rx
- Go to the Past Prescriptions section on the left hand side.
- Right-click on the electronic prescription you want to cancel and select Cancel eScript. The token will be removed from the script exchange if it has not yet been filled.
The patient will not receive any automatic notification that the electronic prescription token has been cancelled. If the patient clicks on the hyperlink in the token SMS or email, a token cancelled message will be displayed.
Failed cancellations
If an electronic prescription cancellation has failed, an alert will appear indicating that you should contact your prescription exchange service to ensure the script is cancelled correctly. Any electronic prescriptions that have failed cancellation will also display with a grey background in Past Prescriptions.
If you attempt to cancel the same electronic prescription a second time and the second attempt also fails, you will have the option to manually mark the script as cancelled. This option should be used if you have contacted your prescription exchange service and they have confirmed that the electronic prescription has been cancelled. The script will continue to be included as a Past Prescription on health summaries and other templates until either the cancellation has been successful or the script has been manually marked as cancelled.
- Go to the Past Prescriptions section on the left hand side.
- Right-click on the eScript you want to resend and select Resend token.
- You can change the original token send method if necessary, including printing the token.
- Click Send.
A known issue occurs when sending electronic prescriptions if the number of characters added to the Qualifications: field exceeds 50. This is due to the ADHA electronic prescribing model limiting the characters in the qualification field sent with an electronic prescription to 50.
In these instances, an alert will appear in Bp Premier indicating that the listed qualifications are too long for the 50 character limit on this field.
If you receive this error message, you will need to update your qualifications in Setup > Users > Edit > Qualifications to equal 50 characters or less in order for eScripts to send correctly.
Details entered into the Bp Premier user setup (Setup > Users > Edit) can be used on documents produced by the software (such as invoices and electronic prescriptions), and therefore users should refrain from entering personal contact information in user setup. Contact details in the Edit User Details window should always be specific where possible to the provider’s practice location.
While this has always been how the software has functioned, this is now particularly important for Practices using electronic prescribing. If the Mobile Number field is populated, a prescriber's personal mobile number could potentially be seen by a third party that has obtained access to the electronic prescription token.
There are also some smart forms that the information will end up on, but this is likely to be less of a problem, as the user reviews the form before it’s sent.
A utility is available for viewing and extracting Bp Premier eScript logs.
To access the utility:
- Open the computer's file explorer, navigate to C:\Program Files\Best Practice Software\BPS, and double-click View ePrescription Log.EXE.
- You will be prompted to select a username and enter a Bp Premier password. enter these details and click Login. The ePrescription log screen will appear.
- To view and extract the logs for an eScript, select the eScript and click View. The ePrescription Log Viewer screen will appear.
- Select Export Record to export the eScript logs as an XML file.
- To view the XML file, open it in Internet Explorer.
Information correct at time of publishing (28 November 2023).
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