Using email to skip doctor, pharmacy visits
Story By: Bea Karnes
Source: NBC
Imagine e-mailing your doctor with a simple question, having him shoot your prescription straight to the pharmacy, and checking lab results all without ever sitting in a waiting room.
It's medicine of the future, and it's happening now. Doctors, hospitals and pharmacies are taking your health care, high tech. Many patients don't know it, but 70 percent of the nation's pharmacies already accept electronic prescriptions. Instead of trying to read the doctor's handwriting the pharmacist simply views a secure prescription online, fills it and you pick it up in one trip instead of two.
Instead of costly, time-consuming visits and phone calls some doctors now allow patients to e-mail them.
Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest HMO, has a secure website serving two million people. Patients can check lab results, e-mail the doctor, see notes from their last appointment or make appointments without ever picking up a phone or going in. "When you're doing it online, just as you're scheduling airline flights, you can see everything that's available and make your decision," said Kaiser Permanente's Dr. Mark Snyder.
Mom Jessica Peers loves it. "The whole process of packing the kid, driving 15 minutes, waiting in the office. The whole thing saves me two hours," she said.
The Bush administration and all Presidential candidates have endorsed some form of health information technology. Big companies like Kaiser can afford the start-up costs, but what about small practices?
Right now, only six percent of doctors do e-prescriptions. The National Governors Association is trying to figure out how states can help. "States want to both enable this process and figure out what is their proper role in making sure people's health data are protected," said the association's John Thomasian.
Security is a big concern, with health records and electronic prescriptions. For months, the Drug Enforcement Administration has been mulling over how to change rules so prescriptions for controlled substances can be transmitted electronically.
