Together with its Pharmacy Benefits Manager (PBM), MedImpact, MDwise provides physicians and other health care providers services to assist with the process of prescribing drug therapy for their patients. Prescribers have access to patient-specific prescription eligibility, medication history, and basic formulary information for consenting patients in both inpatient and outpatient settings. This exchange of essential intelligence between prescribers and the MDwise PBM enables physicians to write an informed prescription at the point of care. The MDwise PBM interfaces with e-prescribing connectivity vendors to deliver these services to physicians who treat MDwise members. MDwise e-prescribing applications enable a prescriber to use a computer or hand-held device to:
- Electronically access the patient’s prescription benefit. Electronically accessing a patient’s prescription benefit, both formulary and eligibility, allows prescribers to choose medications that are on formulary and are covered by the patient's drug benefit.
- Prescribers can also choose lower-cost alternatives such as generic drugs.
- Dispensing pharmacies are less likely to receive prescriptions that require changes based on the patient's drug benefit, which, in turn, reduces unnecessary phone calls from pharmacy staff to physician practices regarding drug coverage.
- With the patient’s consent, electronically access that patient’s prescription history.
- Electronically accessing a patient's prescription history allows prescribers to receive important information on their patients' current and past prescriptions and to become better informed about potential medication issues with their patients (e.g., catching potentially harmful drug-to-drug and drug-allergy interactions).
- Prescribers can also gain insight into a patient's medication adherence by understanding the dispensing cycle of a prescription.
- Electronically route the prescription to the patient's choice of pharmacy.
- Exchanging prescription information electronically between prescribers and pharmacies improves the accuracy of the prescribing process. E-prescribing also saves time, primarily as the result of reduced pharmacy phone calls and faxes related to prescription renewal authorizations as well as from a reduced need for pharmacy staff to key in prescription data.