Four pharmacy organizations say they support the Drug Enforcement Administration’s efforts to allow electronic prescribing of controlled substances but called for further clarification on the new e-prescribing rule, Modern Healthcare reports.

On March 31, DEA published in the Federal Register its interim final rule on e-prescribing of controlled substances. According to DEA public affairs officer Barbara Carreno, the rule took effect June 1.

NCPA Letter

On Tuesday, the National Community Pharmacists Association sent a letter to DEA offering to provide guidance on a requirement for digital signatures on e-prescriptions.

NCPA also asked the agency to allow nurses to act as liaisons between long-term care facilities and pharmacies because most long-term care centers do not employ full-time physicians.

Letter From Four Groups

In another letter, four pharmacy groups asked DEA to clarify:

• The steps that prescribers must take to account for changes in e-prescriptions;
• The responsibilities associated with digital signatures;
• Work flow procedures in long-term care facilities; and
• E-prescribing options for emergency situations.

The groups also requested that third-party audits occur less frequently and that pharmacies be allowed more time to respond to security concerns identified in internal audits.

The letter’s signatories were the:

• American Pharmacists Association;
• American Society of Consultant Pharmacists;
• American Society of Health-System Pharmacists; and
• NCPA (Robeznieks, Modern Healthcare, 6/3).
• Emdeon Makes Recommendations

In a comment letter on the interim final rule, software and service vendor Emdeon Business Services noted that it will take time to add a new field to e-prescribing transactions to indicate that a prescription has been digitally signed.

As an interim solution, Emdeon recommends placing the signature indicator inside an XML “envelope” or “wrapper” in the header of the prescription.

Emdeon also offered recommendations about archiving, altering content and verifying eligibility (Goedert, Health Data Management, 6/1).

Source: http://www.ihealthbeat.org/articles/2010/6/4/pharmacy-groups-call-for-dea-to-clarify-new-rule-on-eprescribing.aspx