GOVERNMENTMedicare reform debate: Bill sets electronic prescribing deadlinePhysicians support the concept but not the mandate.By Markian Hawryluk, amednews staff. Sept. 15, 2003. Washington -- After witnessing the pitfalls of developing electronic transaction standards under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, physician groups fear that a proposal to mandate electronic prescribing in Medicare could become a mini-HIPAA. Lawmakers included the plan in the House version of the Medicare reform bill. It would require Medicare officials, with help from an advisory panel, to establish electronic prescribing standards by Jan. 1, 2006. Doctors would have to write electronic prescriptions for all Medicare patients starting in 2007, except in emergencies and other circumstances. The Senate Medicare reform bill would develop standards by the same date, but physicians could choose whether they wanted to prescribe electronically. In a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chair Bill Thomas (R, Calif.), a group of medical specialty societies and the AMA called for lawmakers to adopt the Senate framework. The House's 2007 deadline, they said, is unrealistic. "Difficulties and delays in implementing [HIPAA transaction] standards are a case in point," the groups said. "Congress passed HIPAA in 1996, and these standards have yet to be fully implemented. Development of electronic prescribing will be equally complicated." The groups said the rigid implementation deadline would be an unfunded mandate on physicians, forcing them to purchase untested and expensive systems to comply. Small practices, and in particular those in rural areas, would be hit hardest without the economies of scale to offset implementation costs, they said. [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2003 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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The doctors are in the house
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