Good news! It is possible for your providers to each write 10 unique e-prescriptions by the e-prescribing (e-Rx) June 30 deadline to avoid the 1% hit to your Medicare payments in 2012. The fastest way to get from zero to 10 unique e-prescriptions is through an online service, says Helen Phung, a spokeswoman for Practice Fusion, which offers a free online e-Rx service. With Practice Fusion and other online e-prescribing services such as AllScripts and DrFirst.com, providers can meet the deadline in record time.

Cardiologists, orthopedic surgeons and internists saw the biggest percent gains in compensation from 2009 to 2010, while ophthalmology and family practice without OB/GYN took the biggest hits. The single biggest gainer was invasive/interventional cardiology with 6.2%. The overall gains were small than the gains from 2008 to 2009, which saw dermatologists, orthopedic surgeons and ENT physicians leading the pack .

You and your peers are in the last days to meet the ominous e-prescribing (e-Rx) deadline that could hold 1% of your 2012 Medicare payments hostage if you fail to e-prescribe to 10 unique patients by June 30 or apply for one of the finalized exemptions. Part B News has compiled a list of the top e-Rx stories with vital tips to aid you in the mad dash for the finish line:

You and your peers won’t have many good reasons to participate in accountable care organizations (ACOs) unless CMS makes big changes to its proposed ACO rule, according to four major provider advocacy groups. “The current requirements proposed for acceptance as an ACO by Medicare under this program sets too high of a bar for participation by many internal medicine physicians, especially [those] who practice in smaller, independent physician practices,” writes the American College of Physicians.

While CMS is still months away from finalizing its proposed rule on accountable care organizations (ACOs), it’s already moving to make the ACO concept easier to swallow. A new department of CMS, called the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, announced three ACO-related initiatives.

Q. For determining medical decision-making, level-of-risk and management options, if a physician writes a prescription for a patient for a medication that can also be obtained over the counter is this considered “prescription drug management” or over the counter drugs?  For example, a prescription is written for 800 mg Motrin, which the patient can take over the counter at the same dosage.

It could be a little harder for your non-physician practitioners (NPPs) to meet their quota and avoid the 1% cut to Medicare payments in 2012 if your practice is not set-up for e-prescribing due to a combination of some practices lack of preparedness and providers being numbed with information. “This stuff is painful, so people tend to ignore it until it’s too late,” she says of the hoards of providers fretting about meeting their e-script quota in just days. 

You and your peers lost $88.9 million to denials on chiropractic manipulation services in 2009, down from $115 million in 2007. While the average denial rate for codes 98940-98942 has fallen from 13.3% to 10.8%, chiropractic manipulative treatment (CMT) remains a stubborn trouble spot for a specialty that earns a sizeable chunk of Medicare revenue among non-physician practitioners (NPPs).

Not all providers are required to e-prescribe but knowing  your NPPs’ prescribing responsibilities can help your practice avoid the 1% payment hit in 2012.

Both nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) bill the majority of their Medicare services in the office setting, though NPs split the rest of their utilization between nursing facilities and skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). PAs split the rest of their utilization on the emergency room, and inpatient hospital. Neither spend much time in ambulatory surgical centers or end-stage renal disease (ESRD) facilities.