Incentives lower costs of e-prescribing

The state medical society and two insurers are encouraging doctors in Massachusetts to adopt electronic prescribing.

By Tyler Chin, amednews staff. Nov. 24, 2003.

The Massachusetts Medical Society and two health plans have launched separate initiatives to make electronic prescribing more affordable to physicians in the state.

On Oct. 31, two rival health plans -- Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Tufts Health Plan -- announced they will jointly spend $3 million to roll out e-prescribing technology to the 3,400 highest prescribers in their networks. The prescribers, representing about 16% of the approximately 21,000 practicing physicians in Massachusetts, will receive free BlackBerry and PocketPC handheld devices from the health plans.

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The insurers also will pay for a year's worth of subscription fees for the technology from Dallas-based Zix Corp. The insurers also will cover the cost of eight months of wireless service or three months of high-speed Internet access, said Robert Mandel, MD, an ophthalmologist and vice president of provider enrollment and services at the Blues plan. Physicians who opt to participate in the voluntary program will pay a portion of the carrier fees, which range from $50 to $100 a month, he said.

Affording efficiency

The state medical society's initiative also seeks to entice doctors to prescribe electronically by making the technology more affordable.

After evaluating several e-prescribing software systems, the medical society on Oct. 28 endorsed the product made by DrFirst Inc. of Rockville, Md. As part of the deal, the society's 18,000 members will receive a discount of up to 84% from the software provider.

About 18,000 of Massachusetts' 21,000 practicing physicians belong to the state medical society

The society, which said it is not receiving any financial compensation from DrFirst, wants to encourage doctors to prescribe electronically, because it believes it will help them practice more efficiently, said Thomas E. Sullivan, MD, a cardiologist and president of MMS. In turn, that will help improve patient safety and efficiency throughout the health care system, he said.

Dr. Sullivan welcomed the health plans' similar initiative, saying it will help connect more doctors with the technology. "This is a [good] start. There ought to be more subsidizing [by insurers]. Before this gets rolled out to 80% of the doctors in Massachusetts, there's going to have to be some other people who come in and help subsidize this."

The insurers agreed to fund the initiative because they have been separately testing technology from the same vendor for the past year and have been pleased with the results, the Blues' Dr. Mandel said.

The 300 physicians in that pilot have reported that electronic prescribing saved them time, slashed phone calls from pharmacists and reduced medication errors, Dr. Mandel said.

"We believe this provides a significant [patient] safety benefit to our members."

The insurers are investing in the project also because they believe e-prescribing will help boost physicians' and patients' use of generic medications, resulting in substantial savings to the plans and their clients, Dr. Mandel said.