E-Prescribing Coming to a Doctor Near You      

The news tells us on a regular basis about prescriptions gone wrong.  A physician prescribes blood pressure medication for an elderly patient but the pharmacist can’t read the handwriting, so the patient ends up with a blood thinner which causes a hemmorage that lands them in the hospital.  Or, a child is prescribed an antibiotic but ends up with a cancer med, causing long term health issues.

Medicare has established a way to reduce or eliminate this from happening: E-Prescribing.  By prescribing on line and eliminating handwriting issues, it is estimated that the majority of misread prescriptions can be eliminated.  In addition, this would reportedly save pharmacists about 150 million follow-up phone calls to doctors’ offices per year attempting to clarify prescription medication names, dosages and amounts.

Starting in 2009, Medicare will begin giving doctors who E-Prescribe a 2% bonus on top of their fee for E-Prescribing.  Starting in 2011, the bonus will go down to 1%, and in 2013, it will go down to 0.5% for one year.  The five years of gradually declining bonuses are an incentive to help doctors’ offices begin prescribing in this manner and get them in the habit of doing so, making prescribing and filling prescriptions safer and more efficient for doctors, pharmacies, and, most of all, the patients. 

“There are terrific human and financial costs to illegible prescriptions,” Mike Leavitt, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said on Monday.  “There are a lot of people hurt and a lot of time spent trying to sort out bad handwriting,” he added.

E-Prescriptions have been on the radar since about 2006, when pharmacies that participated in Medicare were mandated to be able to take the E-Prescriptions.  Implementing this method of prescribing medication should create a profound reduction in prescription mistakes.

Entry Filed under: General-Medicare