2010 Tennessee Code
Title 63 - Professions Of The Healing Arts
Chapter 8 - Optometrists
63-8-126 - Drug prescriptions.

63-8-126. Drug prescriptions.

(a)  Any handwritten prescription order for a drug prepared by an optometrist who is authorized by law to prescribe a drug must be legible so that it is comprehensible by the pharmacist who fills the prescription. The handwritten prescription order must contain the name of the prescribing optometrist; the name and strength of the drug prescribed; the quantity of the drug prescribed, handwritten in both letters and numerals; instructions for the proper use of the drug; and the month and day that the prescription order was issued, recorded in letters or in numerals or a combination thereof. The prescribing optometrist must sign the handwritten prescription order on the day it is issued, unless it is a standing order issued in a hospital, a nursing home or an assisted care living facility as defined in § 68-11-201.

(b)  Any typed or computer-generated prescription order for a drug issued by an optometrist who is authorized by law to prescribe a drug must be legible so that it is comprehensible by the pharmacist who fills the prescription order. The typed or computer-generated prescription order must contain the name of the prescribing optometrist; the name and strength of the drug prescribed; the quantity of the drug prescribed, recorded in letters or in numerals; instructions for the proper use of the drug; and the month and day that the typed or computer-generated prescription order was issued, recorded in letters or in numerals or a combination thereof. The prescribing optometrist must sign the typed or computer-generated prescription order on the day it is issued, unless it is a standing order issued in a hospital, nursing home or an assisted care living facility as defined in § 68-11-201.

(c)  Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent an optometrist from issuing a verbal prescription order.

(d)  (1)  All handwritten, typed or computer-generated prescription orders must be issued on tamper-resistant prescription paper that meets the current centers for medicare and medicaid service guidance to state medicaid directors regarding § 7002(b) of the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act of 2007, P.L. 110-28, and meets or exceeds specific TennCare requirements for tamper-resistant prescription paper.

     (2)  Subdivision (d)(1) shall not apply to prescriptions written for inpatients of a hospital, outpatients of a hospital where the doctor, or other person authorized to write prescriptions, writes the order into the hospital medical record and then the order is given directly to the hospital pharmacy and the patient never has the opportunity to handle the written order, a nursing home or an assisted care living facility as defined in § 68-11-201 or inpatients or residents of a mental health hospital or residential facility licensed under title 33 or individuals incarcerated in a local, state or federal correctional facility.

[Acts 2004, ch. 678, § 6; 2005, ch. 12, § 5; 2008, ch. 1035, §§ 6, 9.]