TAMPER RESISTANT PRESCRIPTION UPDATE

Medicaid requires that all written prescriptions for outpatient drugs be executed on tamper resistant paper by April 1, 2008. A prescription is considered tamper resistant if it has one of the following features:

• One or more industry-recognized features designed to prevent unauthorized copying of a completed or blank prescription form;
• One or more industry-recognized features designed to prevent the erasure or modification of information written on the prescription by the prescriber;
• One or more industry-recognized features designed to prevent the use of counterfeit prescription forms.

By October 1, 2008 a prescription will need all three features to be considered tamper resistant. Prescriptions submitted to the pharmacy by telephone, fax or electronic means are exempt.

CMS has opined that computer generated prescriptions printed on plain paper may meet one of the standards as of April 1, but will not meet all three baseline standards as of October 1. Therefore, computer generated prescriptions must also be printed on tamper resistant paper by October 1, 2008.

More information is available from: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/DeficitReductionAct/30_GovtInfo.asp