Thirty-four percent of all office-based prescribers were using e-prescribing by the end of 2010. Cardiologists had the highest adoption rates (49%) followed by family physicians (47%). Providers created 326 million e-prescriptions in 2010, up from 190 million in 2009. Wow!

If 49% of cardiologists ARE e-prescribing, that means that 51% still AREN’T e-prescribing. Since we’re just a month and a half away from providers being penalized for not e-prescribing, this is not good. If you aren’t e-prescribing by June 30, your Medicare professional fee reimbursements will be cut by 1% in 2012. This requirement applies to ALL health providers participating in Medicare who are eligible for billing numbers: physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, etc.

There’s still time to get an e-prescribing system set up and complete the requisite number of e-prescriptions before the deadline. Check out http://www.cardiosource.org/healthIT for more resources on how to get started. Also, check out the other posts on this blog about e-prescribing. This deadline is real and quickly approaching. If you don’t want to take the 1% cut in pay, you’ll need to get started now.

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