🎞️ View video tutorial: Recording externally prescribed and over-the-counter medications

If your patient has been prescribed a medication by a provider outside of your clinic, or they’re regularly taking an over the counter medication, you can add it to the patient’s current medication list without creating a prescription. You may not have all the information, such as dosage, start date, or strength, but you can still document that the patient is taking this medication in the Medications area of the chart.

Recording medications prescribed by external providers ensures the patient's medication list accurately reflects all medications the patient is taking, and allows the interaction checker to take these medications into account.

1. Open the Medications area of the chart. From the Start/Open menu, choose Medications. Or, if you have the chart summary open, click the arrow in the Active Medications widget.

2. Click New Medication.

3. In the search field at the top of the prescribing area, type part or all of the medication name and select the medication from the list.

4. Optionally enter the dosage instructions and change the start date.

5. If you know the end date, you can set it so the CHR knows to keep the medication on the patient's active medications list until that time.

6. If the patient will be on the medication for an ongoing basis, choose Yes beside Continuous.

7. Since you are recording an existing medication, select the Externally prescribed medication checkbox.

💡 Tip: When you select the Externally prescribed medication checkbox, the CHR automatically selects the Don’t create prescription checkbox. This is because you are recording an existing medication and not prescribing it at this time.

8. Click Save.

📌 Note: When viewing the Medications list, a unique icon is shown next to externally prescribed medications.