(U.S. Senate: Washington, D.C.) -- The cost of poor quality in health care accounts for from 30 to 60 cents of every health care dollar. Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) along with a bipartisan group of legislators have introduced a bill that would expedite the adoption of electronic prescribing technology in every doctor’s office in America. Prescribing electronically instead of by-hand has been proven to save lives and cut costs on a massive scale.
Kerry’s bill would foster the adoption of e-prescribing by providing permanent Medicare funding for payment bonuses to physicians who acquire e-prescribing technology. In addition, for every Medicare prescription a doctor writes electronically, they will be paid an extra 1 percent bonus. Starting in 2011, Medicare physicians who are not electronically prescribing would face financial penalties.
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