A change in Medicare law will penalize physicians beginning in 2012 if they don’t implement and employ a qualified e-prescribing system in the first six months of 2011.
In 2009, Medicare introduced an e-prescribing program that encourages physicians to electronically transmit their prescriptions. The e-prescribing program provides payment incentives for physicians who e-prescribe and payment penalties for physicians who do not. Starting in 2012, Medicare will impose a 1 percent payment reduction penalty on all Medicare allowed charges for eligible professionals who do not electronically transmit their prescriptions. The penalty increases to 1.5 percent in 2013 and 2 percent in 2014.
The 2012 payment reduction penalty will be determined by e-prescribing activity between January 1 and June 30, 2011. To avoid the penalty in 2012, eligible professionals must report e-prescribing activity using measure code G8553 for at least 10 eligible outpatient visits via claims submission. This is true even for physicians who are already reporting through an electronic health record system.
For more information, see CMA’s e-prescribing guide, “Medicare Electronic Prescribing Overview: Payment Incentives and Payment Reductions.”
Contact: Michele Kelly, (213) 226-0338 or mkelly@cmanet.org.
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