Paper prescriptions will soon go the way of subway tokens in New York.
All prescriptions in the state, including prescription pain medications, must be legally issued electronically after late March. It’s part of a new mandate aiming to curb the decades-long opioid crisis that’s ravaged America for years, in which prescription painkillers can sometimes be a gateway to heroin.
Moving paper prescriptions online is supposed to cut down on forged prescriptions, and reinforce online prescription drug monitoring databases, which let doctors see if a patient has been given drugs for pain by other doctors, said Jim Owen, vice president of practice and science at the American Pharmacists Association.
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