e-Prescribing Rate Expected to Double

If you and your practice aren't yet e-prescribing, you're behind a trendÉand potentially losing out financially. Data suggest that the number of doctors who e-prescribe will double from last year, largely thanks to Medicare incentives.

This January, CMS began paying prescribers bonuses if they switched their patients over to e-prescribing. The bonus for this year and next amounts to two percent of charges billed to Medicare for 2009 and 2010. The bonus will be one percent of charges billed in 2011 and 2012, and 0.5 percent in 2013, the last year for the incentive program.

Currently 143,000—or one in four prescribers—are e-prescribing, an increase from 74,000 in 2008. Through the end of August, 110 million of the more than 3.7 billion prescriptions handed out annually by US retail pharmacies had been e-prescriptions, according to Dow Jones newswire.

Besides missing out on current bonuses, prescribers who don't go digital will eventually lose money. Starting in 2012, the incentive payment switches to a "disincentive." Prescribers who don't send out patients' prescriptions electronically will see their Medicare reimbursements cut by one percent starting in 2012, then by 1.5 percent in 2013, and then by two percent in 2014 and beyond. However, experts urge practices to consider the pros and cons of incentives and disincentives, depending on the age of the practice and likely return on technology investment.