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Electronic prescribing

After your practice has enabled eScripts, the option becomes available from the patient record. More information is also available in Frequently asked questions about electronic prescribing.

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'.

In this article:

Send an electronic prescription

  1. Select Rx from the patient record and create a prescription as per usual. You can also send an existing repeat Rx by electronic script. See Add or cease Rx for more information.
  2. 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.
  3. Select the method for sending the electronic prescription token from the Token: drop-down menu.

    4. The options are:

    • 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.

    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.

  4. Click eScript to send.

    5. As of Saffron SP1, if electronic prescribing has not been correctly configured, an alert will appear indicating which information is required in order for electronic prescribing to work.

  5. 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. See Sending schedule 8 electronic prescriptions for more information.
  6. 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.

    7. Send escript token to other phone number

  7. As of Saffron SP1, the Verify eScript screen will appear. Check that the information provided for the script or scripts being sent is correct, then click Send.

  8. If the electronic prescription is successfully received by the prescription exchange service, Bp Premier will show a success alert.

If the electronic prescription was not successfully sent, or the attempt times out, Bp Premier will report an error.

Failed to send the escript

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.

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.

Sending schedule 8 electronic prescriptions

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.

User inactivity timeout

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.

Amend an electronic prescription

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.

Preview an electronic prescription

You can preview an electronic script before sending the token to the patient.

  1. Select the Token: send method for the script.
  2. Right-click the script you want to preview and select Preview eScript.

    3. Select to preview an electronic script

  3. Check the information is correct and click Send.

    4. Preview of electronic script record

Cancel an electronic prescription

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

  1. If you have prescribed a medication and the medication is still in the Current Rx window, click Delete. The Cease Rx window will appear.
  2. Select a Reason for cessation and click Delete.
  3. 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

  1. Go to the Past Prescriptions section on the left hand side.
  2. 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.

Resend an electronic prescription

  1. Go to the Past Prescriptions section on the left hand side.
  2. Right-click on the escript you want to resend and select Resend token.

    3. Resend an escript token

  3. You can change the original token send method if necessary, including printing the token.

    4. Confirm resend of escript token

  4. Click Send.

Electronic prescription contact notes

A contact note is recorded for each electronic prescription sent via SMS or app. The contact note message details include:

  • The date and time the electronic prescription token was sent
  • The phone number the token was sent to
  • The prescriber who sent the token
  • The practice location that the token was sent from.

To view a patient's contact notes, select View > Contact notes from the patient record.

While some contact notes can be resent from the Contact notes screen, electronic prescriptions cannot be resent this way.

Electronic prescription qualifications error message

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.

Prescriber personal details and electronic prescribing

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.

View ePrescription Log utility

A utility is available for viewing and extracting Bp Premier eScript logs.

To access the utility:

  1. Open the computer's file explorer, navigate to C:\Program Files\Best Practice Software\BPS, and double-click View ePrescription Log.EXE.
  2. 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.

  3. To view and extract the logs for an eScript, select the eScript and click View. The ePrescription Log Viewer screen will appear.

  4. Select Export Record to export the eScript logs as an XML file.
  5. To view the XML file, open it in Internet Explorer.

Last updated 22 July 2021

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