Posts tagged 'E-Prescriptions'
The final Medicare physician fee schedule for 2009 is complete. Doctors are breathing a sigh of release knowing that many of them can now move forward and secure their salary and maybe even a raise for next year's work.
In July legislation reversed a 10.6% cut that took effect at the beginning of that month. Starting in January 2009, a 1.1% across-the-board increase will replace an additional roughly 5% cut that would have gone into effect if lawmakers had not acted, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said in the final pay rule issued Oct. 30.
"Medicare's new rule confirms that physicians caring for seniors would have faced a harsh payment cut of 15.1% next year if Congress had not stepped in," said American Medical Association President-elect J. James Rohack, MD.
The upcoming 1.1% boost is less than the CMS-projected 1.6% increase in the cost to physicians of providing care next year. Payment freezes and increases in recent years also have come in under the rise in costs. There are two bonus opportunities exist to more than quadruple the raise that doctors will get for the year.
Physicians who successfully participate in the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative will receive a 2% bonus on all of their Medicare payments for the year. Also, the program for the first time will award a separate 2% bonus to physicians who successfully prescribe medications electronically for their Medicare patients. This has been an issue on the table for quite some time and it is now a real possibility.
Bonuses will not be paid out until 2010 when all the bills are added up and the books are balanced, but they should result in about a 5% or more raise for doctors rather than doctors having to lose money and not be able to continue to serve their patients. The E prescription process is important so that there are less mistakes and less potential health complications to patients.
If you are on Medicare, you can breathe a sigh of relief. This new way of doing business will help you remain with your doctor, and help them remain in business.
In 2006 Medicare made it mandatory for all pharmacies accepting Medicare as payment for prescriptions become ready for E-Prescriptions. Two years later, currently in 2008, Medicare is offering doctors who use E-Prescriptions when prescribing prescription medications, a bonus for five years, beginning in 2009.
Because there have been so many errors when it comes to writing and reading prescriptions, and too many of these errors have been fatal, Medicare is doing all it can to get physicians and their offices on board with writing E-Prescriptions, including offering the financial incentive.
This creates extra money for the doctors, less problems for the pharmacies and more safety for the patients. That is one side of the situation.
The other side of the situation is that in order for the doctors to be able to write E-Prescriptions, it will involve them buying software and other programs, which will involve them spending extra money.
Though the doctors will be receiving a 2% bonus during the first two years, it is estimated that the cost of the system alone – up front and in advance of bringing in any money – is anywhere from $2,000 to $4,000, which is a good sized investment in an already thinly-stretched medical practice whose Medicare reimbursements usually do not even cover the costs of services to the patients these doctors serve who are using Medicare as payment.
We are not talking about huge, upscale, overpriced practices here. We are talking about practices where doctors, nurses, physician’s assistants and others work hard and try to stretch every Medicare dollar in an effort to continue serving as many patients on Medicare as possible. To a practice such as this, even $1,000 can be a tremendous amount of money. Even though the doctors will receive the bonus, it may take time for them to recoup the money.
If there is a way for the doctors to sign on to the E-Prescription system and overcome the barrier of the initial cost, it will be a win-win situation for all, especially their patients. It may take some time for everything to fall into place, however, if even half of the doctors who take Medicare as payment work with E-Prescriptions, many patients lives will be safer because of it.
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.
