Mobile e-prescribing can add many benefits to a physician practice

The adoption of e-prescribing is not only rewarded by the federal government, but a failure to do so could leave practices open to federal penalties. According to the American Medical Association, physicians who don’t adopt e-prescribing when eligible will face penalties starting in 2012. Eligible physicians are subject to a 1.5 percent Medicare payment reduction based on their 2013 Medicare Part B fee schedule amounts during the year. The penalty is 2 percent in 2014.

Mobile e-prescribing allows physician practices to monitor patient adherence to medication more effectively anytime and anywhere, increasing quality of care. Research has shown that e-prescribing is among the top five requested mobile features by physicians. Many physicians say mobile e-prescribing helps them handle prescription requests as soon as they are needed. Regardless of the doctor’s location, they can continue to give fast, accurate care to their patients.

Another advantage is that e-prescribing increases patients’ compliance to medication usage by simplifying the prescription-filling process. With e-prescribing, a refill request goes directly from the doctor’s office, home or mobile device to the pharmacy electronically, and the practice gets an automatic confirmation that the pharmacy received the request and filled the prescription. Paper prescriptions, on the other hand, may lead to a breach in the patient care continuum because doctors have no accurate means of monitoring if patients have filled the prescription.

E-prescribing saves time and money, streamlining the prescription process in many different ways. First, doctors may prescribe a medication or refill a prescription from anywhere and at any time with a mobile device, without the need to wait until they arrive to the office. Second, the prescription request is sent directly to the pharmacy with the click of a button.

Third, pharmacists can see the e-prescription information on their computer or mobile device, drastically reducing their chances of misreading the prescription. The need to call the doctor’s office for clarifications is also greatly reduced, if not eliminated. Currently, 30 percent of all prescriptions require pharmacy call backs, according to the National Committee on Vital Health and Statistics (NCVHS). Considering that 3 billion prescriptions are filled in the U.S. every year, 900 million calls result from pharmacies clarifying information – which makes the time an average practice spends on the phone clarifying prescriptions staggering. Unlike a paper prescription, an e-prescription is clearly presented and comes with detailed information about the medication, including dosage, side effects and medications with which the prescription may counteract. This ultimately helps doctors, pharmacists and patients prevent mistakes and lead to better patient care.

Lost paper prescriptions can become a thing of the past. Paper prescriptions can be misplaced or lost, which in a best-case scenario is inconvenient for both the patient and the doctor. An even worse outcome of a lost prescription might include patients not refilling the prescription at all, possibly resulting in adverse health consequences. E-prescriptions also reduce the possibility of fraudulent behavior or illegally filled prescriptions, because prescription requests can be sent directly to and viewed exclusively by the pharmacist.

Patients want the convenience that mobile e-prescriptions bring. Research shows that patients want the ability to request a prescription renewal through a patient portal using their mobile device. As a society, we are entering a phase of patient empowerment – fueled by mobile access to information, improved care and convenience. A physician’s decision to e-prescribe demonstrates that the doctor is up to date on his or her medical methodologies for treating patients and is willing to make changes to benefit them.

Physicians who e-prescribe enable patients to take full advantage of doctor-pharmacy technology, gain important insight into prescription information and select the location where patients want their prescription filled, so they can conveniently pick it up. These important capabilities benefit the patient and strengthen patients’ view of their physician’s technology practices.

Source: mhimss