Breaking e-prescribing news! The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a proposal that exempts some practitioners from the 2012 Medicare penalty that will be levied against those who are not e-prescribing by June 30. The proposal would create new categories for hardship exemptions, making the total list of exemptions as follows:
- Individual practices in rural areas without high speed internet access
- Individual practices in areas without sufficient available pharmacies for electronic prescribing
- Practitioners who have registered to participate in the Medicare or Medicaid EHR Incentive Program and have adopted certified EHR technology
- Practitioners who are unable to electronically prescribe due to local, state or federal law or regulation. (This proposed exemption is designed to address practitioners who prescribe controlled substances.)
- Practitioners who infrequently prescribe. (For 2012, this means a practitioner must not have had the opportunity to e-prescribe at least 10 times between January and the end of June 2011 in order to qualify for the exemption.)
- Practioners with insufficient opportunities to report the e-prescribing measure due to program limitations
Under the proposal, practitioners would have until Oct. 1, 2011, to claim a hardship exemption. CMS is working to create a web portal to allow for easy filing of the exemption requests and supporting documentation.
This new proposal comes after months of pressure from your ACC, AMA and other physician organizations and will be formally published in the June 1 Federal Register. Comments on the proposal are due July 25, 2011. The College will be developing comments in the coming weeks, particularly as they relate to other provisions of the e-prescribing program not addressed by this new proposal, such as the June 30 deadline and the narrowness of the proposed infrequent prescriber exemption. Stay tuned for more detailed information to be posted at CardioSource.org/healthIT shortly.
Questions/Comments contact advocate@acc.org.