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Florida tells doctors: Print clearly or else

Physicians will get a grace period to adapt to the new law, but after that, violators face possible discipline.

By Damon Adams, amednews staff. Aug. 4, 2003.

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For Tampa, Fla., family physician Daniel Van Durme, MD, old handwriting habits are proving hard to break.

It's not that his writing is particularly difficult to read, but he's been taking some shortcuts that are no longer acceptable.

For years, Dr. Van Durme, like many physicians, has used numbers for months. But a new Florida law requiring legible prescriptions dictates that the month be written out.

The law took effect July 1, making Florida the second state to legislate legibility on prescriptions, according to medical and pharmacy board organizations. In addition to the ban on numbers for months, it also requires that the quantity of the drug be written in text and number, and that doctors legibly print or type prescriptions -- or face scrutiny from the state medical board for bad handwriting.

"It's an added 10 seconds, but multiply that by dozens of prescriptions a day and that's a serious annoyance," Dr. Van Durme said. "But it's hard to argue against something that's going to lead to safer care."

Patients have long complained that they can't make out the writing on their prescriptions, and pharmacists say that trying to read some scribbled prescriptions is akin to deciphering hieroglyphics. Most doctors tend to agree the handwriting problem is more real than imagined.

Unclear and unreadable prescriptions lead to more than 150 million calls a year from pharmacists to physicians, according to the nonprofit Institute for Safe Medication Practices in Pennsylvania.