Our wholesaler (McKesson) has an interdepartmental billing program (IDB) available online that we access for billing purposes. Perhaps your wholesaler has a similar program.

Name of Facility: Aspirus Wausau Hospital

City, State: community hospital

Years as a Buyer: 30+

Thank you for the information. Cardinal has the same features. However do you have a form that the staff fill out. How do you know what to transfer and how much. Do you do all the data input or is it done by the pharmacy staff.

Name of Facility: St Patrick Hospital

City, State: Hospital

Years as a Buyer: 20 years

We have a Pharmacy Requisition process here that works pretty well. Each department that procures medications such as you have described has a typed 3 part Pharmacy Requisition form. The form includes all the medications that are typically procured for that location. There are a few blank lines at the bottom if there is a medication they need to procure, they can write in the appropriate information. The department director must sign, pharmacy signs when they fill the order and then the person picking up the order signs when they pick the order up. This way we know where the medications are going and who is getting them. Then the 3 part form is separated (1) goes to the department requesting the meds, (1) goes to accounting for the department to be charged and (1) stays in Pharmacy for tracking purposes. We use the same format for all of our clinics to order their medications.

We also print out an Omnicell report every month for those items that the floors pull out the Omnicell that do not get charged to a patient and I charge the departments for all the floor charges.

Let me know if you have other questions.

Kathy

Name of Facility: St. Francis Health Center

City, State: Acute

Years as a Buyer: 5 in health care & 20+ in retail hard goods

Thank you Kathy. So if an item is taken out of Omnicell that is not charged to a patient how is it idenified? Do the floor add " for floor stock" or something like this.
Nina

Name of Facility: St Patrick Hospital

City, State: Hospital

Years as a Buyer: 20 years

We have a similar process to Kathy's. However, each department/Unit has their own Floor Stock Requisition Sheet. The items that are patient chargeable are on it as well as Non-chargeable items. The sheet is faxed to the Pharmacy and filled. Once a week, I enter the non-chargeable items into Cardinal's IDB system on Cardinal.com and it creates a bill I send to accounting at the end of the month to disburse.

Write ins are not allowed on FS sheets. If it is an item they don't stock that is needed, they have to have a doctors' order and the charge is generated when entered in the Pharmacy.

Our PYXIS talks to our computer system, so any items taken out are charged off to the patient.

Name of Facility: Arnot Ogden Medical Center

City, State: Acute Care 256 beds

Years as a Buyer: 7