Scanning Prescription with iPhone App

It's great to know that accessing information about all our CVS pharmacy prescriptions is convenient and easy with the Spoken Rx service. In previous workshops in this series, we covered getting set up with Spoken Rx exploring the CVS Pharmacy mobile app and creating and signing into an account. Now that we're set up and signed into the app, it's time to scan a prescription. First, we'll make sure that the home tab is selected. It's the first tab down in the bottom left hand corner in our row of four tabs across the bottom of the screen.

VoiceOver: Selected home tab one of four.

Ricky: Great. Now let's find the option labeled pharmacy. It's about halfway up the screen along the left hand side and has an icon resembling a pill bottle if we're locating it visually or we can find it with explore by touch, if our voiceover screen reader is on. Also, if voiceover is on, we can simply swipe through all our options until we locate it. If explore by touch feels a little uncomfortable. The great thing about this method is that it always works even if the app is updated and the location of the pharmacy option is changed.

VoiceOver: Pharmacy button.

Ricky: Let's select this option with a tap or a quick double tap using voiceover

VoiceOver: Prescriptions heading.

Ricky: Now we're on the pharmacy screen and we're almost there. Let's find the Spoken Rx option which is what we'll use to scan our prescription. There are a couple of ways to find it. It's down in the bottom right hand corner of our screen just above our account and find store tabs so we can locate it there visually or with voiceover on. Let's just touch our last tab in our row of four tabs across the bottom of the screen.

VoiceOver: Tab bar, find store tab, four and four.

Ricky: And now let's just slide our finger up a bit.

VoiceOver: Spoken Rx trademark button.

Ricky: Yes, we found it. And once again with a tap or a quick double tap using voiceover, we can open the Spoken Rx service. Before we tap though, let's go through a couple of tips for making our prescription scan a success. First, we'll locate the Spoken Rx tag on our prescription. It's white and round with a smooth, glossy texture. It's like a sticker on our prescription. In today's example, our prescription is a pill bottle and our tag is on the bottom of the bottle. Now that we've found our tag, how do we scan it?

Let's hold our phone in portrait mode so the long portions of the rectangle are along the left and right sides of the phone. Next we'll hold our prescription tag near the top left corner of the phone. We can do this on the front of the phone where the screen is or on the back of the phone. In either case, we aren't actually using the camera to scan our prescription, so no need to try and position the label in the camera's view. The scanner is using a different technology called NFC.

Here's one final tip before we tap the Spoken Rx option and begin the scan. How close to our phone should the tag on our prescription be? Pretty close actually. We'll hold the prescription tag no more than four inches away from the phone. If you like, proceed as if you're going to gently tap the prescription tag against your phone the scan will likely happen even before you've made contact but this technique will ensure the tag is close enough for a successful scan.

Alright, now that we have the basics down let's select our Spoken Rx option and see how it works. We'll be demonstrating with voiceover on, but if you're not a voiceover user, the experience won't be much different for you. Spoken Rx will still read information aloud and you'll be able to swipe through the items on the screen just as we'll be doing with voiceover on. So let's tap or double tap the Spoken Rx option

VoiceOver: Selected ready to scan.

Ricky: And now we'll swipe right to explore the screen.

VoiceOver: Hold your device near your prescriptions package.

Ricky: Excellent. The instructions for what to do next are spoken aloud. Now let's hold the prescription bottle near the top left of our phone. That sound we just heard along with two quick pulses from our phone means the prescription has been scanned successfully.

Fantastic. Now we'll wait a moment or two. It can take up to 20 seconds for the prescription to begin reading. So if your device is silent for a bit, no worries.

VoiceOver: CVS.

Ricky: Our prescription information is now loaded. Let's touch the top left-hand corner of the screen to make sure the focus is at the beginning of all the info here.

VoiceOver: Double tap to navigate back to previous screen button.

Ricky: Alright, and now we'll begin swiping right to explore the screen. Pausing to hear each item

VoiceOver: Spoken Rx heading, prescription information heading. Patient name Jane Jacobson, prescription ibuprofen 800 milligram tablet dosage tablet. Directions, take one tablet by mouth three times a day with food prescription number 3063717.

Ricky: Wow, all our prescription info is right here and we can easily swipe left or right to hear specific items again. Like the instructions or the prescription number which we might need to request a refill. As we continue swiping right we'll find more information such as our prescriptions expiration date.

VoiceOver: Discard after April 29th, 2023.

Ricky: Information about our pharmacy.

VoiceOver: Pharmacy information heading, pharmacy address 11 Main Saint Wakefield, Rhode Island 02879. Pharmacy phone number 783-3384 link.

Ricky: And an option for more details about our prescription such as side effects and other medication information.

VoiceOver: Get more details button.

Ricky: But what if we have multiple prescriptions and this first one isn't the one we need right now? In that case, we can simply continue scanning until we've found the prescription we're looking for. Let's swipe right

VoiceOver: Scan again button

Ricky: And we've found our option to scan another prescription. A quick double tap here will start the scanning process again. Even if voiceover is off, Spoken Rx will provide these helpful instructions for double tapping options on the screen. Let's swipe right one more time to find our last option

VoiceOver: Back to pharmacy link.

Ricky: Great. Once we're done scanning prescriptions we can double tap this option to return to our CVS pharmacy screen. So just a quick recap. We selected the pharmacy option from the home tab of the CVS Pharmacy mobile app. Found the section called pharmacy tools then tapped on the Spoken Rx link.

Next, we placed our prescription tag very near our phone at the top left corner to scan. And finally we swiped through the screen to find all our prescription information that would normally only be available on the printed label.

So no more trying to remember prescription instructions. No more worry about whether you've grabbed the wrong prescription bottle. No more wondering whether your prescription is past its expiration and no longer safe to take. With a Spoken Rx tag in your smartphone you'll have everything you need to take all your medications confidently, safely, and independently.