CMS officials appealed to more than 1,400 health care industry officials and professionals on Tuesday at the agency-sponsored National E-prescribing Conference in Boston to adopt electronic prescribing technology as a way to improve the U.S. health care system, the Boston Herald reports.

Health Evolution Partners Chair David Brailer said he believes the medical community will be divided in their response to a federal e-prescribing incentive program scheduled to begin Jan. 1, which was included in the recently passed Medicare law (McConville, Boston Herald, 10/8). Under the law, physicians who adopt e-prescribing technology in 2009 and 2010 will receive a 2% bonus in their Medicare payments; those who use the technology in 2011 and 2012 will receive a 1% bonus; and those who use it in 2013 will receive a 0.5% bonus. Medicare payments for physicians who do not use the technology will be reduced by 1% in 2012, 1.5% in 2013 and 2% in 2014. Some health care providers will be exempt from the requirements (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 7/22). "Some doctors have been doing it for 10-plus years, and some will continue to resist it," Brailer said.

HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said, "We need the health care system to get better, and e-prescribing is the next logical step." CMS acting Administrator Kerry Weems said the government has yet to determine a preferred e-prescribing vendor. Weems said, "We've kept it vendor-neutral," adding, "We said, 'Let's have standards and let the market dictate who meets them'" (Boston Herald, 10/8).

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