The State of New York has announced that it will require a Medicaid prescription that’s electronically prescribed to be reported with the prescription’s origin code 3 in the origin code field of the NCPDP 5.1 standard come Jan. 1, 2010.

Pharmacies will receive an incentive payment when this field is auto-populated by the pharmacy system for these prescriptions. Auto-population of this field is the key here.

The definition of an electronically prescribed prescription is that it must be transmitted to the pharmacy computer system using encrypted, interoperable computer-to-computer electronic data interchange in machine-readable format that is compliant with Medicare Part D standards and requirements and New York State pharmacy regulations. Prescriptions faxed to the pharmacy do not qualify.

While the origin code field will be required on Jan. 1 for just electronic prescriptions, it will be required for all prescriptions come July 1. The New York requirement also calls for reporting the prescriber’s NPI in the appropriate field and using the proper qualifier field to tell that the NPI is being reported.

According to the announcement, the pharmacy incentive payment will be reported separately from the dispensing fee on the 835 remittance advice. More information is available at the following Web site: www.op.nysed.gov/part63.htm.