WITH JUNE 30 DEADLINE FOR FEDERAL
INCENTIVES LOOMING, PHYSICIAN ADOPTION OF E-PRESCRIBING
STILL LAGS
~ Despite Money on
the Table, Less Than 50% of U.S. Doctors Utilize the
Web to Prescribe Drugs ~
June 2011
(June, 2011, Sugarland, TX)
- A doctor's scrawl of a prescription on a small piece
of paper may soon be a thing of the past, if the combination
of looming federal incentives payments and consumer
demand work their magic in the medical marketplace.
But right now, the one-two punch of money on the table
and patient requests have resulted in still less than
half of all physician's offices using the safe and efficient
process of ePrescribing.
Under the Medicare Improvement
for Patients and Physicians Act of 2008 (MIPPA), a doctor's
office will receive a 1% bonus payment from the federal
government if it sends ten ePrescriptions by June 30,
2011 and another 1% bonus if there are 25 such prescriptions
by December 31, 2011. Conversely, a physician will be
subject to a Medicare payment penalty of 1% in 2012
and 2013 if the office chooses not to meet these upcoming
deadlines.
According to veteran physician
Dr. Lawrence Susnow, who practiced internal medicine
and geriatrics for 20 years before starting NewCrop,
a provider of ePrescribing systems, finds prescribers
can confirm prescription benefit information prior to
sending an e-prescription, eliminating the need for
the pharmacist to verify those details. And because
there is no handwriting for the pharmacist to interpret,
there is less potential for error caused by similar-sounding
drug names.
Though ePrescribing is growing
rapidly, only 44 percent of large physician practices
and 42% of small and mid-sized practices have adopted
ePrescribing to date. Medical doctors with the highest
ePrescribing adoption rates are cardiologists (49%)
and family practitioners at (47%).
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