What’s New?

We have introduced a new report to the Pharmacy Portal to streamline the process of checking collections and their associated payments/exemption status. Customer feedback was that there can often be a gap of a few days between when a patient pays or declares an exemption online and actually collecting the order. This makes it more time-consuming to find all the details needed in the order log screen to complete the prescription claim submission process.

The new “Collections” Report can be found in the Report section of the left-hand menu. It displays in chronological order the date & time of every order collected. The “paid” column confirms if the patient has paid and the Exemption column will show any exemptions declared by the patient. Users in Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland can ignore these columns.

We recommend using this report for daily claiming of prescriptions which means you will no longer need to check & filter the Order Logs screen.

The report shows collections from the start of the previous day by default but the calendar filter option at the top right of the screen can be used to view any period of time. Both the patient name and the order reference are clickable if you wish to look at a particular order or patient in more detail.

Users in England

Many pharmacies use QR codes or other PMR system integrations to load orders directly into their MedPoint and it is crucial that staff understand the implications of this. In this case, the PMR system dictates whether a given prescription is exempt or needs a declaration and the exemption reason is not always known by MedPoint. There are two categories to be aware of:

1.       If the patient is a “To Pay?” patient where their status is unknown or uncertain, then dispensers labelling the prescription must ensure the prescription is processed as chargeable (even if they think the patient is exempt) so that the charge amount comes through to the MedPoint system via the QR code or integration. In this case the patient is forced to either pay the charge or declare a valid exemption in order to obtain their collection pin and the reason declared is displayed in the collection report.

2.       Alternatively, if a patient is known to be exempt at the point of labelling the prescription then the charge amount sent by the PMR system is often set to zero. This means the patient will receive their collection pin as soon as the bag is loaded into the MedPoint. In these cases ( the majority of orders) the Collection report will display  “Exempt (see PMR)”. There are a number of ways the PMR could send a zero charge amount:

a.       Patient is automatically age exempt ie >60 or <16 years old

b.       Real Time Exemption Check has confirmed the exemption during the labelling process

c.       Pharmacy staff have labelled the prescription as exempt e.g. they may have a record of a patients exemption stored on the PMR system

·       When creating a “To Pay” order within the MedPoint portal, the prescription charge is now calculated automatically based on number of items selected using the + and – buttons.

·       The resulting prescription charge is shown below but is now read-only

If a different charge amount is needed e.g. for a private prescription or retail sale then the “Add retail Charge” option should be used instead. This way the patient will not be given the option of declaring an exemption from NHS charges and must pay in order to receive their collection pin.

 PIN code redaction

 Collection PIN codes are now redacted on all screens where they previously appeared eg machine logs and sms message events. This means pharmacy staff can only use the “Reveal Pin” option on the Order Details screen to obtain the pin number. This creates a clear audit trail in instances where the patient has been provided the pin number by pharmacy staff.

Bug Fixes

·       Some collected bags were still appearing as “loaded” on the machine contents screen

·       Patient names were not capitalised in the Collections Report

API Enhancements

·       We have made a number of background changes to support our latest full two-way integration with Titan PMR https://www.titanpmr.com/ and the BeWell Patient App https://bewell.uk/ which are currently in pilot.