San Francisco Medical Society Blog

January 31, 2013 Deadline Set to File for 2013 Medicare ePrescribing Hardship

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 12:27:25 GMT

If physicians believe they meet one of the Medicare electronic prescribing (ePrescribing) hardship exemptions but did not file by the June 30, 2012 deadline, they will have another opportunity to apply.

Pursuant to AMA advocacy, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has reopened the Communications Support webpage to give physicians more time to file for a hardship, allowing more physicians to avoid the ePrescribing penalty. Available hardship exemptions include physicians:

Unable to ePrescribe due to state, federal or local law/regulation;
With fewer than 100 prescriptions between January 1 and June 30, 2012;
In rural areas without sufficient high-speed Internet access; or,
In areas without enough pharmacies available for ePrescribing.

Many of the ePrescribing penalties received in 2012 by physicians who filed for a hardship exemption were due to filing errors. Therefore, it is important to know that hardships should be filed using the physician’s individual Type I NPI. That is, the rendering Provider NPI used for box 24(J) of CMS 1500 form, or the NPI used in the Rendering Provider Name loop or the Billing Provider Name loop, if the billing provider and rendering provider are the same on the 837 (electronic claim) and the Tax ID number (TIN) they use to bill. Physicians who bill using their Employer Identifier number (EIN) they should use their EIN for filing a hardship and those who bill using their Social Security Number (SSN) should use their SSN for filing hardship.

Please visit www.CMS.gov/ERxIncentive for additional information and resources. If you have questions regarding the ePrescribing Program or need assistance submitting a hardship exemption request, please contact the QualityNet Help Desk via qnetsupport@sdps.org or at (866) 288-8912 Monday through Friday from 7am to 7pm CST.

Physicians who are Mac users may still experience trouble filing for a hardship; if this occurs they should contact the Help Desk as well since CMS is still working to resolve these issues.

New ePrescribing Hardship Exemption Deadline – July 2

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 10:07:36 GMT

CMS has published a notice extending the June 30 deadline for filing an ePrescribing hardship exemption to July 2(included below). CMS appears to be doing this because there are some computer system updates underway for the Communication Support Page.

SFMS has also learned that some physicians with Apple computers are having challenges submitting their hardship exemptions. We are working with CMA and AMA to urge CMS to address this issue and also utilize this information to press CMS to further extend the deadline.

SFMS strongly recommends that any physician who remains unable to submit a hardship exemption request by the end of the day (11:59pm ET) on July 2 through the Communications Support and do the following:

Document any calls and emails you have with the Communications Support webpage team and retain these for your records.
Send an email to the CMS ePrescribing email box to indicate that you were unable to file online, state the reason why, and indicate which hardship you are applying for at eRx_hardship@cms.hhs.gov.

Click here for more information on filing for a hardship from CMS.

2013 Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Payment Adjustment Hardship Exemption Requests Will Continue to be Accepted Until 11:59 PM EST on July 2, 2012

Due to scheduled web maintenance, eligible professionals will be unable to access the Communication Support Page to submit requests for significant hardship exemptions to the 2013 Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Incentive Program payment adjustment beginning at 8:00 pm EST on Friday, June 29, 2012 until 11:59 pm EST on June 30, 2012.

Because this maintenance directly impacts the June 30, 2012 deadline, The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services is extending the submission date for hardship exemptions until 11:59 pm EST on July 2, 2012.

Also, you may have experienced some unexpected challenges accessing the Communication Support Page recently, but the issue has been resolved. Moving forward, please use the link below to ensure you are accessing the secure Communication Support Page properly. CMS cannot be responsible for eligible professionals who access our site via a different link; we cannot guarantee that the data will be stored and saved in our database for processing. To be assured that we receive your hardship exemption request, use the link provided below by 11:59 pm EST on July 2, 2012 -- https://www.qualitynet.org/portal/server.pt/community/communications_support_system/234.

We would like to advise eligible professionals who experience difficulties accessing the Communication Support Page outside of the maintenance hours stated above to please contact the QualityNet Help Desk.

QualityNet Help Desk – Monday to Friday, 7:00 am to 7:00 pm CST; Phone (866) 288-8912; Email Qnetsupport@sdps.org

General CMS Physician Quality Reporting System and eRx Incentive Program information
Portal password issues
Feedback report availability and access
PQRS-IACS registration questions
PQRS-IACS login issues

Avoid the e-Prescribing Penalty for 2013

Fri, 25 May 2012 14:33:06 GMT

The deadline to apply for a Medicare e-prescribing exemption for 2013 is June 30, 2012. If you have not electronically prescribed 10 times with a qualifying physician fee schedule service, you only have a few more weeks to do so. The 2013 payment reduction penalty of 1.5 percent will be determined by e-prescribing activity between January 1 and June 30, 2012.

To avoid the penalty in 2013, eligible professionals must report e-prescribing activity using measure code G8553 for at least 10 eligible fee schedule services via claims submission, or request an exemption through the online web-portal. Exemption requests from individual physicians will not be accepted via mail, email or fax.

The significant hardship categories are as follows:

The eligible professional is unable to electronically prescribe due to local, state, or federal law, or regulation

The eligible professional has or will prescribe fewer than 100 prescriptions during a 6-month reporting period ( January 1 through June 30, 2012)

The eligible professional practices in a rural area without sufficient high-speed Internet access (G8642)

The eligible professional practices in an area without sufficient available pharmacies for electronic prescribing (G8643)

More California Doctors Submitting Electronic Prescriptions

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:42:27 GMT

The percentage of California physicians who electronically prescribe medications has increased steadily over the last few years, according to a report from Cal eConnect, the agency that oversees health information exchange in California. The report found that about 25% of California's physicians currently e-prescribe, up from 3% in 2007. However, the report notes that only about 16% of eligible prescriptions are sent electronically, even though most California pharmacies are set up to receive e-prescriptions.

Source: California Healthline, February 9, 2012.