Preventing delays at the pharmacy counter: How Optum is strengthening ePrescribing reliability

Today, more than 92% of prescribers use electronic prescribing, making it the standard across healthcare. This reality brings significant reliance on digital connections, and even brief outages can create real-world consequences — delayed treatment, repeat pharmacy visits, extra phone calls and added stress for patients, clinicians and pharmacy staff. 

That’s why Optum is working with FDB to strengthen the reliability of electronic prescribing across both human and veterinary care, helping people, and even pets, get the medications they need with fewer delays. 

Network disruptions can delay treatment when there’s only one digital pathway available to send prescriptions. By integrating Optum’s ePrescribing technologies with the FDB Vela™ network, Optum is strengthening the digital backbone behind electronic prescribing, creating multiple pathways that help prescriptions keep moving, even when parts of the system don’t.

Protection against disruptions and delays

The integration is designed to help:

• Give patients and pet owners timely access to medications
• Reduce manual workarounds for clinicians and veterinarians
• Lower inbound calls and administrative burden, helping pharmacies and care teams spend less time troubleshooting and more time focused on patients.

“Patients and pet owners count on prescriptions being there when they need them,” said John Foss, senior vice president of network and data for Optum Insight. “We’re building the infrastructure to support more dependable access to medications across both human and veterinary medicine.”

Bringing first-of-its-kind connectivity to animal health

Now, veterinary care is catching up to human healthcare digitally.

Veterinarians have historically used more manual prescribing processes, creating added administrative work. By introducing the first fully connected electronic prescription workflow for animal health in the U.S., Optum and FDB are helping prescriptions move more seamlessly from the vet to the pharmacy.

“We are closing the technology gap between human and animal health,” said FDB President David Delaney. “By partnering with Optum, we aren't just digitizing pet prescriptions; we are building a redundant infrastructure. Whether it’s a pediatrician or a veterinarian, the goal is the same: ensuring that outages or downtime rarely stand between a patient and their medicine.”

The integration helps streamline prescribing for vets while also connecting them to a broader network of retail pharmacies, which can give pet owners more medication pickup options. More than 8,500 prescribers are now connected through the growing network, with continued expansion planned throughout 2026.

With more than 2 billion electronic prescriptions filled each year in the U.S., strengthening reliability behind the scenes matters more than ever. In a healthcare system increasingly driven by digital connections, advancements like this can help healthcare work the way people expect it to — reliably, quietly and without added friction — so getting a prescription doesn’t become another obstacle to care.