It was only a matter of time before it happened. The drug companies have been doing it for years…putting ads for medications on television and instructing us to tell our doctor what medicine we want them to prescribe for us. Well, now the campaign to get doctors to start using eprescribing applications has been put into the hands of the consumers. Not a bad idea, not bad at all…

A nationwide campaign has very recently been launched by thousands of independent pharmacies, CVS/pharmacy, Duane Reade, Giant Food Pharmacy, Kerr Drug, Longs Drugs, Osco Drug, Rite Aid, Sav-On Pharmacy, Stop & Shop, Walgreens, Wal-Mart and other chain pharmacies designed to inform patients and their physicians on the benefits of electronic prescribing.

According to SureScripts (the operators of the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange, 40,000 healthcare providers in the United States are writing and sending prescriptions electronically. At a glance that number may be impressive, but when you dig deeper you realize it only represents a very small number of total practitioners. Sadly, today, although 70 percent of pharmacies can receive electronic prescriptions, only six percent of practitioners have the ability to send them. However, I think things are going to change due to some governmental initiatives that are on the table (I’ll discuss these in a future segment). It is anticipated by SureScripts that by the end of this year, about 85,000 practitioners will use e-prescribing.

The nationwide campaign instructs us to visit www.learnabouteprescriptions.comand find out if our doctors can e-prescribe. If they can’t, we’re instructed to recommend it to them. According to Tammy Lewis, the Chief Marketing Officer of SureScripts, “In 2007, patients in the U.S. left their doctors office with at least one prescription on 550 million separate occasions. The next time you or anyone you know goes to the doctor's office and the doctor takes out their pad and pen to write a prescription, take the opportunity to ask your doctor for an e-prescription instead.”

I think it’s a good idea. After all, the benefits to eprescribing are well established and all of them benefit us as consumers.