Medicare+Electronic+Medication+and+Safety+Protection+Act


 * Term:** Medicare Electronic Medication and Safety Protection Act

This bill was introduced on December 5, 2007 by Mr. Kerry, on behalf of himself, Mr. Ensign, Ms. Stabenow, and Mr. Martinez.They have introduced legislation to hopefully make e-prescribing mandatory for Medicare beginning in 2011. The Bill itself is divided up into 4 sections: (short title) States that the act may be referred to as: `Medicare Electronic Medication and Safety Protection (E-MEDS) Act of 2007' Lists findings of congress. For example, it states the necessity of this act is based on findings such as 1.5 million preventable adverse drug events happen yearly in the United States. Also studies indicate that at least 530,000 preventable adverse drug events occur each year among the Medicare population, and also cost the Federal Government around $887,000,000, or $1,983 per person. Section 2 goes on to state that electronic prescribing could be used in order to lessen these mistakes and expenses while also helping to educate patients as to affordable generic brands that are available to them instead of costly name brands. Incentives for use of e-prescribing under Medicare** This section lists many benefits and other pertinent information to this act such as "Bonus Payments" which would be given in amounts of (i) 2008 or 2009, $2,000; (ii) 2010 or 2011, $1,500; or (iii) 2012 or a subsequent year, $1,000 for qualifying practices. Also this section covers penalties for failure to conform to this act as well as a method of exemption from this act for extenuating circumstances. As the phrase "Reports on e-prescribing" indicates this section calls for checkups and reports as to how the implementation of this act proceeds whether it is successful and achieves the goals set forth by this act or if this act does not work and rather needs modification.
 * Description:**
 * Section 1**
 * Section 2**
 * Section 3
 * Section 4**
 * Reports on E-Prescribing**

This act calls for electronic prescribing everywhere in the United States. As this shall call all practices to have at least e-prescribing it shall logically push health care to employ more tech savvy people as well as implement more electronic systems. With e-prescribing our country's healthcare is one step closer to mandating electronic medical records.
 * Applications:**

[|Medicare E-Rx Mandate Could Save $3B Annually, CBO Says] [|Congress considers mandate for Medicare e-prescribing]
 * Web Resources:**
 * Related Terminology:**

[|http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.2408:|Medicare]
 * Citations/References:**
 * Graphics:**