Beginning on January 1, 2022 there is new law in California requiring all prescriptions be “e-prescribed”.
Below is a link to the Medical Board’s website with more detail along with a podcast walking through the new requirements and the exemptions to e-prescribing. More information on E-Prescriptions
Below is a summary of the situations where e-prescribing is not required:
- The prescription is issued to a terminally ill patient pursuant to Health and Safety Code 11159.2.
- An electronic data transmission prescription is not available due to a temporary technological or electrical failure.
- The prescribing health care practitioner is issuing a prescription to be dispensed by a pharmacy located outside California.
- If issued in a hospital emergency department or urgent care clinic, the prescription is not required to be transmitted electronically, but shall be electronically issued and may be given to the patient directly, when one or more of the following conditions are present:
- The patient resides outside California.
- The patient resides outside the geographic area of the hospital.
- The patient is homeless or indigent and does not have a preferred pharmacy.
- The prescription is issued at a time when a patient’s regular or preferred pharmacy is likely to be closed.
- The prescribing health care practitioner and the dispenser are the same entity.
- The prescription is issued by a prescribing health care practitioner under circumstances whereby the practitioner reasonably determines that it would be impractical for the patient to obtain substances prescribed by an electronic data transmission prescription in a timely manner, and the delay would adversely impact the patient’s medical condition.
- The prescription that is issued includes elements not covered by the latest version of the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs’ SCRIPT standard, as amended from time to time.
Under this law, a healthcare practitioner who does not use an e-prescription to issue a controlled substance prescription shall document in the patient’s medical record the reason as soon as practicable, and within 72 hours of the end of the end of the technological or electrical failure.