First DataBank Europe (FDBE) provides an advanced Endorsement and Reimbursement Toolkit to help pharmacy system suppliers meet the many needs of dispensing pharmacists in the UK. This sophisticated and flexible toolkit uses the complex regional Drug Tariff endorsing rules to provide automatic prescription endorsement and reimbursement information crucial to the pharmacy business.

The toolkit shields users from the complicated remuneration and endorsing process, resulting in less time spent manually endorsing prescriptions and an increase in overall accuracy and efficiency. The Endorsement and Reimbursement Toolkit also supports XML messaging required for the Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) in England and ePharmacy (including the electronic Acute Medication Service and the electronic Minor Ailments Scheme) in Scotland.

Working alongside respected external experts, FDBE’s clinical and software teams have carefully identified and analysed pharmacy requirements. The result is a more accurate approach to endorsing following current NHS endorsing requirements - a powerful and valuable tool for all pharmacists and dispensing system suppliers.

The toolkit performs the following functions:

The toolkit offers a number of valuable business benefits including:

The toolkit is also used to provide the foundation information for prescription income reporting. Forecasts can be established and predicted values can be compared with actual values. The following information can be generated by the toolkit:

Reimbursement information is provided at all the following levels:

The Endorsement and Reimbursement Toolkit is built on a rules-based structure, and can easily be modified to support current and future endorsing practices. It incorporates a conceptual layer between the set of rules and the toolkit’s outputs, enabling the dispensing system supplier to change the format of the outputs, e.g. messages, without it being necessary for FDBE to amend the code. The toolkit has been created using a platform independent class design that can easily be implemented across a variety of platforms. Using advanced technology to save time and money and to increase efficiency at many levels, the Endorsement and Reimbursement Toolkit is a valuable and sophisticated component of any modern pharmacy system.