Electronic prescribing helps doctors make lower-cost choices
Patient Safety Monitor Alert, December 10, 2008
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!
Two Massachusetts health plans released a study showing that physicians using hand-held electronic prescribing devices were more likely to make lower-cost prescription choices than doctors using paper pads, reports The Boston Globe Health Blog. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Tufts Health Plan rolled the e-prescribing system out in 2003 and designed the system so that doctors could easily see how much each medication that they could prescribe would cost. Medications were given designated colors: green for generic medications which that were cheapest and had the smallest co-payments, blue for the next tier of medications which that cost more and had a higher co-payments, and red for the next tier of medications which that cost the most, had the highest co-payments, but were also available generically.
The study lasted 18 months and during that time, physicians using the e-prescribing technology were 3.3% more likely to prescribe generic medications than those physicians using a prescription pad. This equaled 70 cents per patient.
To read more, click here.
Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Patient Safety Monitor Alert!
Comments
0 comments on “Electronic prescribing helps doctors make lower-cost choices ”
Related Products
-
Briefings on The Joint Commission
Briefings on The Joint Commission will help you with all of your accreditation and survey preparation needs. Every month...
-
Patient Safety Monitor
As part of your Patient Safety Monitor membership, you'll receive Briefings on Patient Safety. In this 12-page monthly...
-
Patient Safety Monitor Alert
This e-mail newsletter provides healthcare professionals with the latest patient safety news, while offering useful...
-
Patient Safety Quality Monthly
Ken Rohde, Senior Consultant for The Greeley Company with over 25 years of experience in quality management. His roles in...
-
The No-Hassle Guide to EHR Policies, 2nd Edition
This second edition from EHR expert Margret Amatayakul provides the tools you need to develop effective HIPAA-compliant EHR...
Most Popular
- Articles
-
- HIPAA Q&A: Flu shot requirement for hospital employees
- HealthDataInsights posts new issues for medical necessity claims
- Running an effective peer review committee meeting
- Q&A: Incidental disclosures and patient privacy
- New FAQ posted on storing laryngoscope blades
- Sneak Peek: Effort underway to establish caseload benchmarks
- Tip: Perform your own internal investigation prior to government audit
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- HIPAA 5010 deadline extended, but threat remains, says AMA
- HHS task force: Consider privacy, security with text messages
- E-mailed
-
- Running an effective peer review committee meeting
- HIPAA Q&A: Flu shot requirement for hospital employees
- What does case-mix index mean to you?
- Featured blog post: Nurses face felony charges after reporting physician to the Texas Medical Board
- HHS task force: Consider privacy, security with text messages
- Tip: Correctly code bilateral pain management procedures
- 2012 CPT code changes for ASCs: Shoulder and knee scopes and pain management
- COT basics to best
- Documentation and coding for toxic metabolic encephalopathy
- Guidance and tact key to compliant, effective physician queries
- Searched