IRS mandate for POS systems

This is a very serious question in today?s pharmacy industry. An IRS mandate promotes an electronic process for using flexible spending cards which will save you and your pharmacy customers a lot of time and paperwork. However, if your POS system is not IIAS-compliant by December 31, 2008, your pharmacy will be unable to accept and process flexible spending cards as a service to your patients. As the use of the flexible cards increases, patients will go to pharmacies that can process them. Pharmacies that delay responding to this deadline now could end up losing a portion of their pharmacy business.

Given the fact that "more than 90% of employers offer FSA?s to their employees and studies project that 85% of

employees with FSA?s will have FSA debit cards by 2010" it appears that you can't afford not to be compliant. Keep in mind that Wal-Mart is IIAS-compliant.

If Intuit sold a POS system that was specifically geared to pharmacies I have little or no doubt it would be IIAS-compliant.

Just as a side bar the requirement for this type of software is an excellent means of lowering health care costs.