HHS secretary calls for e-prescribing mandate

ORLANDO, Fla. At the recent Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, Health and Human Services secretary Michael Leavitt called for mandated electronic prescribing for Medicare patients. He also hinted at mandated use of electronic health records under Medicare as well, according to published reports.

“The time has come to make the change to e-prescribing,” Leavitt said in his keynote address. “We can no longer afford to pay reimbursements for people to prescribe in the most expensive way.” In regards to electronic health records, Leavitt said, “The day is not long off until we do the same for electronic health records.”

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is in the process of conducting a program under which up to 1,200 small and medium-sized primary care practices would receive Medicare incentive payments for adopting electronic health records. This is in an effort to fix the Medicare reimbursement system, which Leavitt believes needs to be reformed, “We over-subsidize many of the wrong things and under-support many of the right things.”