First Rx verification system in development

The world's first on-line prescription verification system is now indevelopment at nevoca.com Inc. Once completed, it says, the system will help practitioners and pharmacists eliminate most prescription drug fraud and abuse, which costs the US health care industry and its customers $25 billion a year.

By creating a real-time, on-line patient prescription history database, nevoca.com's Prescription Verification System will all but eliminate the most prevalent of prescription drug fraud scenarios, including forged prescriptions and practitioners' signatures of authorization, copy and resale of prescription drugs and unauthorized alterations to original prescriptions, it says.

Prescribers will be able to enter patient data and new prescriptions into the database through nevoca.com's on-line forms. After the system has stored this information, pharmacists can access the database to assess the validity of the written prescription prior to filling by verifying the practitioner's license and confirming the drug and dosage information.