A CLINICIAN'S GUIDE TO ELECTRONIC PRESCRIBING

Step 3 - Understanding Costs and Financing Options
The next step is to understand what the upfront and post-implementation costs are for
e-prescribing systems and alternative financing options that might be available to your
practice. There are an increasing number of federal, state, and private sources of financial
aid for physicians to help encourage e-prescribing adoption.
As mentioned in Section I, federal level regulations released in
2006 now allow e-prescribing hardware and software to be
donated free of charge by health insurers, hospitals, group
practices and other eligible donors. Congress has also signaled
its strong support of e-prescribing by providing incentives for
physicians using e-prescribing. The legislation was passed in
July 2008, and incentives will be available from Medicare
beginning in 2009 and ending in 2013. The incentive payment
will be a 2% bonus of your normal Medicare fee schedule
payments. Those practices not e-prescribing by 2012 will see
a reduction in Medicare payments.
Key Considerations:
Planning
Technology
For more information on
the relaxation of Stark
and Anti-Kickback, go to
www.ama-assn.org/go/
hit.
For more information on
the Medicare
e-prescribing program,
go to www.cms.hhs.gov/
eprescribing.
• Identify a member(s) of the project team to research the costs and potential
subsidies or reimbursement programs available to your practice. Contact the
health plans in your area to inquire about initiatives they may sponsor or pay-forperformance
programs that help practices acquire e-prescribing systems.
• Identify any existing national and state initiatives for which the practice may
qualify. Many organizations – including state governments, payer organizations,
medical associations and e-prescribing vendors – have developed special programs
to encourage prescribers to adopt e-prescribing technology. A list of some of those
programs can be found in Appendix II.
• Calculate your practice’s projected reimbursement under the new Medicare
incentive legislation and research pay-for-performance programs for which your
practice is eligible to participate.
• If you are considering both stand-alone e-prescribing systems and EHR systems,
document price differences between a stand-alone e-prescribing system and an
EHR system with e-prescribing functionality. Include all hardware (desktop, laptop,
PDA, servers, printers), software, interfaces and networking costs (i.e., Internet
connectivity, wireless network, integrating practice management system with
e-prescribing or EHR). Also include in the costs for a stand-alone system, the
projected costs and implementation challenges of later moving to an EHR system
(i.e., data transfer, technical infrastructure changes).
A Clinician’s Guide to Electronic Prescribing
October 2008
Page 16