E-Prescribing: IO Delivers Incentives to Your Practice

In the coming year, many ophthalmology practices will switch to e-prescribing in order to reap its numerous benefits.  CMS is offering a 2% incentive payment of a practice’s total Medicare reimbursement -- in addition to the 2% PQRI incentive.  Using IO Practiceware’s new e-prescribing EMR software release is simple and increases productivity in the practice. This will mean:

• No more work prescribing drugs than is currently required
  
• No more paper Rxs to print, retrieve, and hand to patients
  
• No more printer jams
  
• Greatly reduced need to order and pay for special Rx paper
  
• Better tracking of medications

IO Practiceware is working in partnership with SureScripts, the largest and best e-prescribing partner; together, the two companies will provide your practice with these services:

• Secure electronic transmission of prescription information. 
  
• Electronic refills. When patients request a refill from their pharmacy, practices receive the request electronically and are able to approve the request with the click of a button.
  
• Formulary and eligibility information will be instantly available.
  
• Drug cautions and interactions will be shown.
  
• In time, complete patient medication histories will be downloadable – saving tech time.

In order for a physician to qualify for the 2% Medicare incentive, he or she will need to prescribe electronically and report on at least 50% of qualified cases throughout the calendar year. This does not mean that practices must begin reporting on January 1, 2009. The 50% is gauged by the total number of patients seen throughout the year.  Thus, you should not worry if your practice does not begin e-prescribing or reporting until the spring; you will still be able to qualify for the incentive payment.

In order to e-prescribe and report, practices must:

• Sign up with IO for this service. The cost of installation is one month’s maintenance. The cost of use is a surcharge of 10% on your Monthly Fee.
  
• Register. IO will do this for you.
  
• Receive training. Before you begin using e-prescribing, we will provide your practice with a training session regarding how the process works.
  
• Use the IO software to e-prescribe. The IO clinical software has been modified so that your front desk can record which pharmacy each patient wants their prescriptions sent to. Otherwise, there are no changes in the way you write Rxs.
  
• Report. Medicare is informed that you are e-prescribing by including a “zero dollar” service code on each claim for which you report an office visit code. 

There are three codes that will be used and IO will automatically put these codes on the claims for you. The codes are:

• G8443 – All prescriptions for this visit were sent electronically through a qualified e-prescribing system.
  
• G8445 – You have a qualified e-prescribing system but no drugs were prescribed during this visit.
  
• G8446 - Some or all drugs prescribed during this visit were printed or were phoned in because of one of the following reasons:
  
• Required by law (Schedule II-V drugs or other state law)
  
• Patient request
  
• Qualified e-prescribing system temporarily unavailable

In short: E-prescribing will soon be available to IO customers, and those who use IO to e-prescribe will find the new incentive translates to a significant increase in revenue.

If you have questions, please feel free to contact us.