E- Prescribing – Incentive qualified
Medicare Incentive for “Qualified eRx”:
According to the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act (MIPPA) of 2008, any provider who meets an annual threshold of e–prescribing/ patients volume will get incentive payments from Medicare which will start at 2 percent for 2009 and 2010, and then drop to 1 percent in 2011 and 2012 and subsequently fall to 0.5 percent in 2013.
However, those providers who are not adopting E-prescribing, their Medicare reimbursements will decrease by 1 percent in 2012, 1.5 percent in 2013 and 2 percent in 2014 and later.
Those providers who are adopting e-prescribing early will be eligible for the following Medicare reimbursements:
Providers are adopting e-prescribing by year Receive Medicare reimbursements ( %)
2009 2
2010 2
2011 1
2012 1
2013 0.5
Those providers who are not adopting e-prescribing by 2012, their Medicare reimbursements will decrease as follows:
Providers are not adopting e-prescribing by year Medicare reimbursements decrease by (%)
2012 1.0
2013 1.5
2014 2.00
2015 and subsequent year.
A “Qualified eRx” must be competent enough to performing all of the following functions.
- Generate a complete active medication list
- Select medications, print prescriptions, electronically transmit prescriptions, and conduct all time alerts(safety checks include: automated prompts that offer information on the drug being prescribed, potential inappropriate dose or route of administration, drug-drug interactions, allergy concerns, or warnings or cautions)
- Provide information on lower-cost, therapeutically appropriate alternatives (if any)
- Provide information on formulary or tiered formulary medications, patient eligibility, and authorization requirements received electronically from the patient’s drug plan (if available)
