What To Look For In a Pharmacy System Interface

When RMS was founded 20 years ago, one of the first innovations we brought to market was our pharmacy system interface platform. It became the standard for allowing communication between point of sale systems and different pharmacy systems.

Like most things in the pharmacy vertical, interfaces have evolved quite a bit over the last 20 years. And with that evolution comes more options and features for your pharmacy to take advantage of. No doubt this competitive, feature rich landscape is a major boon for pharmacies of all sizes. That doesn’t mean that it’s not overwhelming if you’re looking at choosing the right pharmacy point-of-sale and pharmacy system vendors to partner with. With so many features and options, where do you start in figuring out what you need? Here’s a quick look at some of the basics to help you get started

At the register – There’s more to selling a prescription than scanning a barcode, so make sure to check out everything that happens during workflow completion at the till. One of the most popular and sought out features in this category is the “additional prescriptions for pickup” prompt. This will let clerks know if there are unscanned prescriptions waiting for the customer and ensures that customer never leaves without all the prescriptions they need. Make note of controlled substance needs for your state and make sure to take integrated controlled substance functionality into consideration.

Signatures – You’ll want to make sure you can capture all the applicable signatures easily through the till. Beyond the acknowledgement for picking up the prescription you’ll want to look for HIPAA, Safety Caps Decline, and payment signature options to name a few.

On the back end – With many interfaces being multi-directional, take some time to review information that’s accepted by the pharmacy system from the point-of-sale. And don’t forget to explore options for reporting as well as information available for patient statements.

Odds and ends – Keep an eye out for information that’s sent to the point-of-sale from the pharmacy system like date of birth, patient address, and NDC number to enable even more features. For example, in cases where RMS receives the NDC number from the pharmacy system, other interfaces like nutrient depletion notifications through Ortho Molecular Products can be activated.

RMS customers have access to over 30 different pharmacy system integrations using these features and many more. And if your needs change down the road, your integration can change without having to start from scratch with your point-of-sale.