Tricare beneficiaries can now request prescription refills from military pharmacies by logging into their MHS Genesis electronic health record.
The Defense Health Agency added the "new feature" to the MHS Genesis Patient Portal on Feb. 29.
The new refill option applies only if a military pharmacy originally filled the prescription. Prescriptions originally filled by Express Scripts home delivery or a retail network pharmacy must be refilled accordingly.
Patients who would like to renew a refill in MHS Genesis should click on the "Rx Refills" tab on their MHS Genesis Patient Portal home page, the Defense Health Agency said in a news release dated March 15. The portal allows users to see all their prescriptions that are available to refill; to choose which to refill and where; and to find out when they're ready to pick up.
MHS Genesis deems a prescription eligible for a refill when it estimates that 75% of the previous fill of the medication has been used. "Your prescriptions won't be eligible for refill before that time," according to the release.
To register their MHS Genesis account, Tricare beneficiaries need their DoD Self-Service Logon, or DS Logon, from the Defense Manpower Data Center, a Personal Identity Verification card, or a Common Access Card.
The Defense Department completed its deployment of MHS Genesis in October, and it's "now in use at every [U.S.] military hospital and clinic worldwide," according to the release. Patients requested about 30,000 refills through MHS Genesis in the first week the service was available.
In addition to requesting prescription refills, patients can access their health data, notes, test results and appointments within MHS Genesis, and they can request prescription renewals and communicate with health care providers via secure messaging.
Beneficiaries wanted the ability to request refills within MHS Genesis, U.S. Public Health Service Lt. Cmdr. Minh Doan, patient portal solution owner for the Defense Health Agency, said in the news release. "It is another tool for beneficiaries to manage their own health care."
Patients may still request refills from military pharmacies by using the automated phone system, a Defense Health Agency spokesperson told Military.com.
As of March 13, outages of the patient portals were still a possibility, stemming from a cyberattack against Change Healthcare, part of UnitedHealth Group, according to the Tricare website. In an outage, call the automated phone line to request your refill.
Tricare patients can still log in to their Tricare Online Patient Portal accounts until Oct. 1 to download personal health information.
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