Jason:Members of our staff as well as J.K. are meeting to brainstorm ways to deal with our prescription renewal nightmare.S.McK. presented a snapshot of one week's statistics and for 7 doctors we had over 350 med renewal requests.I have forwarded a question that was posted by one of the FHTs. Included is a perspective from G.S. from D.Medical Associates.Please feel free to respond to W.B.'s question if anyone has a sense of how to improve the present renewal system. D.W.
Our group's main clinic (7 docs) is having trouble with Fax Renewals.
This is kind of a perennial topic for FP practice mgmt....I've seen a number of suggestions, most of which you have undoubtedly discussed, but here goes anyway.....
1. Don't give any refills. For chronic meds, give pt's enough refills until next expected visit, otherwise they have to come in.
2. For 7 docs, use one assistant to screen/authorize/call/fax in refills according to the docs rules (50 refills a day, wow, full time job....), otherwise they have to come in.
3. Encourage to use 90 to 180+ day refill plans..hey, even Wal-mart's doing it now.
4. You can increase the office visit E&M code next visit for med refills (see this article under "Medication refills" http://www.aafp.org/fpm/20070200/coding.html)-- and let patients know frequent refills will cost them.
5. Here's a whole study done on Rx refills ... http://www.jabfm.org/cgi/content/full/19/1/31 -- emphasis on efficient EMR's handling of refills and use of ancillary staff with general guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules. Graham has improved the synapse fax server system and is improving it further.
