Pharmacy groups wants mandatory e-prescriptions

The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) today is launching a campaign to promote electronic prescriptions by asking Congress to mandate that physicians adopt the technology if they want to treat Medicare patients.  Though the gambit has provoked objections from the physician lobby, the PCMA is hoping that the promise of billions in savings to the federal government will appeal to lawmakers eager to find offsets for new healthcare spending.  One of the biggest new healthcare expenditures facing Congress this year is a temporary fix to the Medicare payment formula for physicians themselves. Without action, Medicare will cut payments to doctors by 10 percent next year — but stopping that cut could cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars.  According to a PCMA-commissioned study by the Gorman Health Group, the organization’s preferred policy would save $26.3 billion over 10 years.  “Hitting doctors with an unfunded e-prescribing mandate at the same time the government plans to cut Medicare physician payments 10 percent next year is untenable,” American Medical Association (AMA) board member Joseph Heyman said in a written statement. The Congressional Budget Office “has not identified any savings to the Medicare program from e-prescribing,” Heyman added.  The PCMA is trying to spur wider and more rapid adoption of the technology through Medicare because the program is so large it can practically dictate national standards.  Wider adoption of electronic prescribing, or e-prescribing, also would provide the PCMA’s members with a much larger market for the mail-order pharmacy services they provide. The PCMA represents pharmacy benefit management companies, which administer prescription drug benefits for private insurers and Medicare Part D.

More in the Hill, http://thehill.com/business–lobby/citing-medicare-savings-group-says-doctors-should-have-to-e-prescribe-2007-07-12.html