On Premise Professional EHR 19.4 Upgrades
Have you scheduled your On Premise Professional EHR 19.4 upgrade
in preparation for the 9/1/2021 NCPDP 2017071 deadline?
Preparing for the regulatory shifts that affect your practice’s day-to-day operations is a priority at Allscripts.
Our team of industry experts is dedicated to delivering solution and service packages that enable your practice to absorb regulatory change while continuing to deliver the quality healthcare your patients have come to expect.
What is happening:
CMS has mandated the use of a new NCPDP script for ALL electronic prescribing as of September 1, 2021. As a result, Surescripts, the electronic Prescription clearinghouse, WILL NOT allow electronic prescriptions to be processed if the EHR does not meet the new e-prescription standard as of this date.
Allscripts is notifying you of the necessity to upgrade your current Professional EHR software to version 19.4 or higher in order to meet this new electronic prescription standard. On Premise clients must run Professional EHR version 19.4 or higher before September 1, 2021 to avoid electronic prescription service disruption.
If you are hosted by Allscripts, Allscripts will handle your upgrade for you and no action is needed at this time.
What happens next:
In order to serve every client in a timely manner, we require you to contact Allscripts to arrange an upgrade assessment and ensure a date on the upgrade schedule. Due to the high volume of upgrade activity expected this year we may not be able to accommodate requests after this date because of the impact to previously scheduled clients. To reserve a date for your upgrade assessment please log a case to the Professional EHR Upgrade team as soon as possible.
This assessment is especially urgent if you are operating on older hardware or any version of Microsoft® Windows Server or Microsoft® Windows SQL Server that is less than version 2012, or any version of the client operating system less than Microsoft® Windows® 10 Professional/Enterprise.
Microsoft® made changes to its approved software matrix, ending support for Windows SQL Server 2008 (July 9, 2019), Windows Server 2008 (Jan. 14, 2020), Windows 7 operating system (Jan. 14, 2020), and Windows XP operating system (April 8, 2014).
As a result of these changes, any client on these unsupported Microsoft versions that is also running MEDD/Formulary will not be able to receive data updates as of July 1, 2020.
*Professional EHR 19.0 unsupported Microsoft software includes the following:
Windows Server Database Platform (Microsoft ended support as of July 9, 2019)
- Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 SP3 Standard Edition (64‐bit)
- Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 SP3 Enterprise Edition (64‐bit)
- Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 SP3 Standard Edition (64-bit)
- Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 R2 SP3 Enterprise Edition (64-bit)
Windows Server Operating System (Microsoft ended support as of January 14, 2020)
-
Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008 R2 SP1 Standard Edition (64-bit)
-
Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise Edition (64-bit)
-
Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008 R2 SP1 Datacenter Edition (64-bit)
- Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008 R2 SP3 Remote Desktop Services Standard Edition (64-bit)
- Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008 R2 SP3 Remote Desktop Services Enterprise Edition (64-bit)
Additional resources:
Direct links:
Log Case via the Client Support Portal
Attention - Allscripts Professional EHR Clients/E-Prescribing Update
Important Update: NCPDP SCRIPT v10.6 Sunset Date
Surescripts New 10.6 SUNSET DATE FAQ
CMS Prescription Drug Benefit Announcement
Thursday - July 16 @ Noon EST
Webinar Recordings
New Features in Professional EHR 19.3 to 19.4 - February 20, 2020
Upgrading from Professional EHR 17.3 to 19.4 Feature Overview – June 9, 2020
Professional EHR 19.4 Upgrade NCPDP Setup Information - June 11, 2020
Log an upgrade case via the Client Support Portal
Enter the following responses in the required fields:
Product: Professional EHR
Service Type: Upgrades
Subject: Schedule on premise upgrade to Professional EHR 19.4
Click Submit
Frequently Asked Questions
Q) What is NCPDP?
A) NCPDP stands for the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs. NCPDP is a collaborative organization with representatives from prescriber and pharmacy system vendors, network providers (such as Surescripts), PBMs, government agencies, and others that come together to develop and update standards, such as those used for electronic prescribing, eligibility checking, medication history, and others. NCPDP is an ANSI accredited standards development organization.
Q) What is SCRIPT 2017071?
A) SCRIPT is the standard that governs electronic prescribing transactions. The version number is the year, month and number when the version was issued. 2017071 was issued in July 2017. NCPDP issues four updates to SCRIPT each year.
Q) Why are we changing?
A) Every few years CMS names a new version of SCRIPT that will apply to Medicare reimbursements. As most payers and other industry stakeholders follow the lead of CMS, this is essentially a national mandate to migrate to that version. In April of 2018, CMS named 2017071 as the next version of SCRIPT, with an effective date of Jan 1, 2020.
Q) Why January 1, 2020?
A) CMS considers updating the version of SCRIPT as it relates to reimbursements as a major policy change and all major policy changes take effect on January 1. CMS has yielded to the industry regarding transition and will not penalize any entity for adopting 2017071 earlier or later than January 1, 2020. To our knowledge, CMS has not extended the NCPDP SCRIPT standard v2017071 certification deadline of January 1, 2020.
Q) How long do we have to transition?
A) You will have until September 1, 2021, to transition to this new script. Surescripts, as the operator of the network, has set a September 1, 2021, date as the sunset date upon which it will cease supporting messages transmitted in the current version of SCRIPT. This date was set after consultation with industry partners (including Allscripts) and experience from previous transitions.
Q) What is Allscripts doing?
A) Each Allscripts application is handling this in a slightly different way. Professional EHR will deploy this change in 19.4
Q) What do clients need to do?
A) Prepare for your upgrade. All clients will need to upgrade to a NCPDP 2017071 certified release prior to September 1, 2021.
Q) What happens if an account isn't upgraded by that date?
A) Any prescriptions sent on September 1, 2021, will be rejected by Surescripts.