Orders and Prescriptions

How orders and prescriptions flow through the RxScale system

Orders and Prescriptions

This page explains the complete lifecycle of an order in RxScale — from the moment a patient places it to the moment they receive their medication.

How Orders Flow Through the System

When a patient places an order through your shop, it triggers a series of steps managed by RxScale:

Patient places order
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        v
   Order created (init)
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        v
   Processing started (started)
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        v
   Waiting for doctor review
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        v
   Doctor approves prescription
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        v
   Prescription signed (QES)
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        v
   Order sent to pharmacy (waiting for pharmacy)
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        v
   Pharmacy processes order
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        v
   Order shipped
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        v
   Order completed

Order Lifecycle Step by Step

1. Order created

   The patient completes a checkout in your shop. An order is created in RxScale with a status of “init”. The system validates the order and begins processing.

2. Processing started

   The system verifies the order details, checks product availability, and prepares the prescription request for doctor review.

3. Waiting for doctor

   The prescription is placed in a doctor’s review queue. The doctor reviews the patient’s questionnaire responses and medical information.

4. Doctor decision

   The doctor either approves, declines, or places the prescription on hold.

   • Approved — The prescription moves to signing.
   • Declined — The order is updated and the patient is notified.
   • On hold — The prescription is paused for additional information.
5. Prescription signed

   The doctor electronically signs the prescription using a qualified electronic signature (QES). This makes it legally valid.

6. Sent to pharmacy

   The system routes the order to an appropriate pharmacy based on product availability and location.

7. Pharmacy processing

   The pharmacy reviews the order, prepares the medication, and ships it to the patient.

8. Order completed

   The patient receives their medication and the order is marked as completed.

Prescription Management

Prescription Creation

A prescription is created automatically when an order enters the doctor review stage. You do not need to create prescriptions manually — the system handles this based on the products in the order.

Prescription Statuses

Status	What It Means
waiting for doctor	A doctor has not yet reviewed this prescription.
approved	The doctor approved the prescription. It will be signed next.
signed	The prescription has been electronically signed and is legally valid.
declined	The doctor declined this prescription.
ON_HOLD	The prescription is on hold for additional review.
cancelled	The prescription was cancelled.

For detailed status descriptions, see Prescription Statuses.

Working with Pharmacy Partners

Once a prescription is signed, RxScale handles pharmacy assignment automatically. The system considers:

• Product availability — Whether the pharmacy has the required products in stock.
• Location — Geographic proximity to the patient for faster delivery.
• Capacity — The pharmacy’s current workload.

You do not need to manage pharmacy relationships directly. RxScale takes care of routing orders to the right pharmacy.

Monitoring Orders

You can monitor order progress through:

• Webhooks — Receive real-time notifications when order or prescription statuses change. See Webhooks and Notifications.
• Management API — Query order and prescription details programmatically. See Management API.

Shopify Priority Settings

If your shop uses Shopify, you can pass priority values to RxScale so urgent patients or orders are surfaced ahead of normal-priority work. Use integer values; higher numbers mean higher priority. Missing or invalid values are ignored and the default priority is used.

Setting	Shopify location	Required key	Example value
Order priority	Order additional attribute / custom attribute	_rxscale_priority	10
Patient priority	Customer metafield	namespace custom, key rxscale_priority	5

Order priority applies to the specific Shopify order. Patient priority is stored on the patient profile and can be reused across the patient’s future activity.

Store priority values as plain integers. Values such as high, urgent, or empty strings are ignored instead of being converted to a priority.

Placing Prescriptions on Hold

If your shop uses Shopify, you can have a prescription created on hold instead of going straight to the doctor. Held prescriptions are not offered to doctors for review until they are taken off hold, which is useful when an order needs a manual check first (for example, awaiting a lab result or an identity confirmation).

Set the hold intent through order attributes:

Setting	Shopify location	Required key	Example value
Put prescription on hold	Order additional attribute / custom attribute	_rxscale_prescription_hold	true
Hold reason (optional)	Order additional attribute / custom attribute	_rxscale_prescription_hold_comment	Awaiting lab result

• The prescription is placed on hold only when _rxscale_prescription_hold is a truthy value: true, 1, or yes (case-insensitive). Any other value — or a missing attribute — creates the prescription normally.
• _rxscale_prescription_hold_comment is optional. When present alongside a truthy hold, the reason is recorded on the prescription’s status history and shown to the reviewer. The comment is ignored if the order is not held.
• The hold is applied when the prescription is first created. Adding the attribute to an existing order later does not retroactively hold an already-created prescription.

The hold applies to the prescription only. The order itself continues through its normal lifecycle.

Pharmacy Orders in the API

When you retrieve orders via the Management API, each order includes a pharmacy_orders array showing how the order is being fulfilled:

{
  "uid": "order-123",
  "status": "started",
  "pharmacy_orders": [
    {
      "uid": "po-456",
      "status": "waiting for pharmacy",
      "external_status": null,
      "name": "PO-A1B2-C3D4",
      "pharmacy": {
        "uid": "pharm-789",
        "display_name": "City Pharmacy"
      },
      "delivery_type": {
        "uid": "dt-001",
        "display_name": "Standard Shipping",
        "identifier": "standard_shipping"
      },
      "created_at": 1712000000,
      "updated_at": 1712000100
    }
  ]
}

Each pharmacy order represents a fulfillment attempt by a pharmacy. An order may have multiple pharmacy orders if it was reassigned to a different pharmacy.

delivery_type is resolved from the connected shop’s fulfillment method (configured per shop), otherwise from the receiving pharmacy’s default delivery type. It may be null when neither is set, so do not assume a delivery type is always present.

Pharmacy Order Statuses

Status	What It Means
init	Pharmacy order has been created but not yet sent.
waiting for pharmacy	Order has been sent to the pharmacy and is awaiting processing.
in-progress	The pharmacy is actively processing the order.
completed	The pharmacy has shipped the order.
cancelled	The pharmacy order was cancelled.

Related Topics

• Order Statuses — Detailed explanation of all order statuses.
• Prescription Statuses — All prescription statuses and their meanings.
• Order Lifecycle — Technical guide to order status transitions.