Medicare e-Prescribing Bonus

The Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 has instituted incentives through the Center for Medicare Services for physicians implementing electronic prescriptions in their practice.  In 2009 and 2010, physicians who e-Prescribe will receive a bonus payment comparable to 2% of their overall estimated Medicare reimbursements for the year.

This onetime payment will be mailed to the reporting provider (not the practice or group) and is based on the provider tax ID.  Providers who have not updated their Medicare enrollment status within the last 5 years are encouraged to fill out a Medicare 855I updated enrollment form to validate the practice information that Medicare has on file.

If the provider is also participating in the Provider Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) program for Medicare they may qualify to receive an additional 1.5% bonus from the PQRI program thus increasing their overall bonus to as much as 3.5%

SureScripts, which is the e-prescribing partner used by Axolotl in the Elysium, was one of the 7 chosen  participants in the testing phase of the Medicare PQRI development . SureScripts is a fully compliant provider for e-prescribing.

The reporting and qualifying details for e-prescribing are expected to be released soon. Qualifying factors are expected to be similar to the existing PQRI Measure 125.