CMS Will Provide Incentives for Adoption of E-Prescribing Tools
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that clinicians may receive incentives for adopting technologies that support e-prescribing. This new effort will start in 2009 and run through 2013.
Healthcare professionals who employ this technology may be eligible to receive incentive payments of two percent in 2009 and 2010. That will be decreased to one percent in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, the incentive payment will again drop to 0.5 percent.
After 2012, those healthcare providers that have failed to implement the technology successfully will receive a reduced rate of reimbursement. Exemptions to such will be considered individually. For example, some cases may be excused for lowered payments in the case of financial hardship preventing deployment of the technology.
CMS reports that widespread adoption of e-prescribing technology will support significant financial savings, in the realm of $156 million over the five year program, by reducing medication errors. The agency estimates that well over half a million Medicare recipients experience adverse events from drugs annually.
July 24, 2008 Related topics: Finance, Quality, Safety, Errors, IT & software