CMS Extends the Deadline to Tuesday November 8th to Apply for a Significant Hardship Exemption to Avoid the 2012 Electronic Prescribing Payment Penalty

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has extended the deadline to apply for the significant hardship exemption to Tuesday, November 8th, 2011.  If you missed the previous November 1st deadline, CMS has extended the deadline by one week, so it is still not too late to apply for the 2012 Medicare Electronic Prescribing hardship exemption.  If you are an eligible professional who was unable to report at least 10 electronic prescriptions from January 1st to June 30th in order to qualify for the 2011 Medicare Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program, you may still receive a 1% penalty for the 2012 electronic prescribing payment adjustment.  To avoid this penalty, eligible professionals and group practices participating in the group practice reporting option (GPRO) must apply by, Tuesday, November 8, 2011 for the 2012 Medicare Electronic Prescribing hardship exemption.   

On September 6, 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Final Rule: Medicare Program—Changes to the Electronic Prescribing (eRx) Incentive Program.  The final rule made several key changes to the e-Prescribing program.  The ACS was actively involved responding to the proposed changes to the eRx Incentive Program in order to reflect the concerns of surgeons attempting to comply with the program. We are pleased that CMS took into account many concerns raised by ACS, along with other organizations.  While we continue to believe additional changes should be made to the program, we are encouraged that the current changes will help some surgeons to avoid the eRx penalty.      

In order to assist you with the hardship exemption request process, we are providing a step-by-step guidance document that explains how to apply to for the hardship exemption http://www.facs.org/ahp/erx-exemption.pdf.
   
For more information on the Medicare e-Prescribing program and whether you are an eligible professional, please see the e-Prescribing article from the June issue of the American College of Surgeons Bulletin at: http://www.facs.org/ahp/pubs/whatsurg0611.pdf  or contact the ACS Washington Office at 202-337-2701 or ahp@facs.org.

For additional information from CMS on the e-Prescribing program, please see http://www.cms.gov/erxincentive/.    

For a copy of the Final Rule, please visit:  http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-09-06/pdf/2011-22629.pdf.