Learn how to manage prescriptions, print labels, and utilize other helpful tools within our prescription module!
Table of Contents
💊 How to Access
The ‘Prescription’ icon is located at the top right hand corner of any patient screen to the left of the ‘One-off’ button:
➕ Adding a New Prescription
For any checked-in patient, simply click the ‘Prescription’ icon to search for a product to prescribe:
After searching for and selecting the desired medication, Instinct will open the dose calculator to help you prescribe. It also offers Plumb’s, provides pricing, and includes your normal medication safety warnings.
By default, the doctor and expiration (1 year from prescription) will be set, but both can be adjusted. There is also a PRN option for unlimited refills.
Snippets can be added (managed by Admins) to include common prescription instructions:
After entering all prescription instructions, click the orange ‘Prescribe’ button and Instinct will instruct your label printer to print a label (more on this below). If there is a price associated with the item, it will also appear on the Instinct Invoice. If there is a Medication Guide linked to the medication, a notification will display in the bottom left-hand corner of Instinct alerting the prescriber. Clicking on the Open Medication Guides button in the alert, the prescriber is able to print a PDF of the Medication Guide.
💡 ProTip: Order ‘Prepare TGH Meds’ on the treatment sheet with detailed instructions in order notes:
👀 Viewing Existing Prescriptions
Existing prescriptions can be viewed by clicking the ‘Prescription’ icon of any patient. Please note – any discontinued or voided prescriptions (those that have expired or been manually discontinued using the 3-dot menu) will also appear here:
💡 ProTip: This prescriptions module can also be pinned (pin icon towards top right of module) and opened side by side with the comm log or a charting document.
💊 Refilling Prescriptions
To refill a prescription, simply click the ‘Refill & Print Label’ as shown below to print another label for the next refill.
Please keep in mind that in order to refill a prescription, the patient must be checked in with an active prescription and additional available refills. If they are not checked in, you will be asked to check them in or start an OTW visit:
💡 ProTip: If you’re checking in a patient just to create or refill a prescription, your Admin team can create a specific Ward called ‘Pharmacy’ (for example) to help filter out these patients on your Status Board. You may also include a note in the ‘Reason for visit’ field explaining this.
❌ Editing, Discontinuing, or Voiding a Prescription
After a prescription is created, you have up to 24-hours to edit the prescription using the 3-dot menu. You also have the option to reprint a label or discontinue/void a prescription:
Discontinuing or Voiding a prescription will require a note for communication purposes. Once discontinued or voided, you can no longer print the label or refill the prescription.
🔄 Rx Snippets and Copying
Prescriptions have been added to the Snippets so that you can easily drop them into your Charting Documents. These are also available both for Copy/Pasting in places outside of Instinct.
The various Copy/Snippet options include:
- Active – includes active prescriptions (does not include discontinued or voided)
- 30 Days – includes all prescriptions created in the last 30 days
- All Time – includes all prescriptions (including discontinued or voided)
🧑🎓 Student/Draft Mode and Approve Prescriptions
Student/Draft mode users will be able to create draft prescriptions that will then need to be approved, similar to ordering and approving treatment items. As a reminder, student/draft mode is a permission your Admin team can apply to select users.
Please keep in mind that student/draft mode users cannot refill a prescription.
💡 Tips on Printing Prescription Labels
⚡️ Important Note: Instinct is compatible with DYMO printers but Chromebooks don’t support the installation of applications, which means the DYMO driver is unable to be installed on these devices. Since Chromebooks do not support the DYMO driver, we recommend using other laptops/desktops for printing prescriptions.
Instinct will only print prescription labels using the Dymo 450 Label Printer listed below and you must install the Dymo driver on your computer for it to work (simply plugging it in will not work for Instinct labels). At this time, printing can only happen on Windows or Mac devices (Chromebooks will not work).
You can always create a label on any device and then go to a computer that can print labels to “reprint” them.
If you create a prescription without this printer available, an error message will appear to let you know.
If you create a prescription and the patient signalment is incomplete (age/DOB is missing), an error message will appear to let you know. The label will not print until this information has been included.
🖨 Printing Prescriptions from Instinct on a PC
In order to print prescriptions from Instinct:
- Re-Install the Dymo Driver/Software on every computer.
- The label printer will need to be shared in order to print from Instinct on other computers:
- Select the Start button, then select Settings > Devices > Printers & scanners.
- Choose the printer you want to share, then select Manage.
- Select Printer Properties, then choose the Sharing tab.
- On the Sharing tab, select Share this printer.
- Once the above steps have been performed, insert 3-1/2” x 1-15/16” labels (like these) into the printer (label side down). Please note – we only support this specific label size.
- Make sure your Dymo 450 is plugged into one computer on your network.
🖨 Printing Prescriptions from Instinct on a Mac
- Re-Install the Dymo Driver/Software on every computer.
- Open the install file and complete the installation process.
- You may see a pop-up asking permission for the extension to run. Once granted, plug in your DYMO printer to confirm it’s working.
💡 A few things to keep in mind
- You can print from any computer (Windows or Mac) as long as the Dymo printer is connected to a computer on the same network.
- If you are interested in printing over your network, see page 15 of the Dymo user guide.
- The labels are installed in the printer with the label side down (there’s also a diagram on the inside of the printer that shows which way the spool goes).
- If your practice doesn’t have an available computer to attach a label printer to, Dymo sells a small print server to make your printer available over the network.
⚙️ DYMO Troubleshooting Tips
- Restarting your computer will restart the DYMO services, resolving most issues!
- On some occasions, simply unplugging the printer and plugging it back in to your computer will resolve connectivity issues.
- Open DYMO Connect program on your workstation and check if an update is available (install update if needed).
- Please make sure the signalment for this patient is completely filled out (Age, Birth Date, Gender, Species, Breed). This can be edited by clicking Admin (calendar icon within left sidebar) and selecting the patient name under ‘Patient Registration’. If any signalment information is missing, the label will not print.
- Please make sure DYMO Connect Web Service is running on each computer that wants to print from Instinct. On Windows, the web service must run with User permissions, not Administrator.
- DYMO provides the required web service in the bundle called “DYMO Connect for Desktop” on Windows and “DYMO Label™” on macOS. This bundle includes an app for designing labels, the web service, some custom fonts, and a Microsoft Word Add-in. On Windows, the Complete install option is the simplest choice but if you decide to use a Custom install, please make sure the ‘DYMO
- Instinct prints by talking to the DYMO Connect Web Service running on the local computer. The DYMO Printers admin page in Instinct displays a list of what printers DYMO’s web service can see, because the web service does not expose this on its own. Instinct can print to any DYMO printer the web service can access.
- To confirm your computer is connected to a DYMO printer, you can open up your Task Manager and search for: DYMO.WebApi.Win.Host. If this does not show up, please re-install the DYMO Driver.
- If your LabelWriter prints one or more blank labels before / after / in between correctly printed labels, or the labels to not align correctly (printing starts or stops in the middle of a label), press the feed button on the front of your LabelWriter printer. If it advances more than one label, or it does not advance a full label, then it is most likely caused by a label issue. In this case, please confirm that the labels have been loaded correctly and that you are also using genuine DYMO labels.
- If you no longer have a printer and it’s still displaying in Instinct after being removed; delete the printer from your printer list on your computer. If it’s still showing in Instinct, follow these steps.
- If needed, you can Print Label Sheet (PDF) which will print a prescription label on a regular printer and you can affix to the pill bottle.
