Pharmacists regularly encounter several different e-prescribing transactions. Pharmacists receive new prescription transactions (NewRx) from prescribers, and they send refill renewal requests (RefReq) and receive refill renewal responses (RefRes). These are just a subset of all available e-prescribing transactions made available through the SCRIPT standard. In addition, each transaction has pre-defined response types that convey a message of approval or denial to the pharmacist.
The “Denied New Prescription to Follow” (DNTF) response type used in e-prescribing refill request workflow was created by NCPDP to tell pharmacies that the prescriber has denied the refill request and will send an entirely new prescription to the pharmacy instead. The original intent of DNTF was to indicate a clinical change. However, in practice DNTF has often been used to indicate a technical change and the new prescription ends up being identical to one that was denied. This adversely effects workflow since DNTF workflow and refill request approval workflow are different.
Also, the pharmacy is charged 2 fees for these messages – one for DNTF and one for the new prescription, when one Approval message would only result in one fee.
NCPDP is working to redefine DNTF to account for clinical and technical changes in a prescription, but it will take time for NCPDP to approve modifications to the standard and for the industry to implement the changes.
In the meanwhile, Surescripts has elected to eliminate the fee for DNTF in the best interests of the industry.
PHSI applauds Surescripts for removing the DNTF fee charged to retail pharmacies. Even though this does not change current DNTF practices, it in effect removes a double fee charge to the pharmacy for something they cannot control.
PHSI will be monitoring progress by the NCPDP Work Group responsible for the DNTF modifications and will note anything worth posting on our blog. If you have any questions regarding DNTF, e-prescribing or NCPDP, please contact PHSI via message here.