Medical Mutual will offer incentives for e-prescribing

One of Ohio’s biggest health insurance companies is trying to convince doctors to forego their old-fashioned prescription pads more often.

Cleveland-based Medical Mutual of Ohio is teaming up with its pharmacy benefits manager, Medco Health Solutions, for a pilot program that gives select doctors financial incentives to prescribe medications electronically.

Medical Mutual is signing up 250 of its network physicians who order the highest volume of prescriptions for the health insurer’s enrollees but haven’t switched to electronic prescribing yet.

The practice of ”ePrescribing” enables doctors to send their prescription orders through a secure connection from their computers to the pharmacy’s computer.

”Since the prescription is being sent electronically to the pharmacy, the member can get his or her prescription more quickly,” said Ed Byers, spokesman for Medical Mutual, which has about 1.6 million enrollees.

By prescribing prescriptions electronically, doctors also can immediately see which drugs are covered and at what level for their patients.

As a result, patients save money and the health insurer saves money ”because they see higher returns on generic dispensing and formulary adherence,” said David Fidler, director of ePrescribing for Medco Health Solutions. ”Everybody’s interests are aligned when you start talking about e-prescribing.”

Dr. James Dom Dera, a physician with Ohio Family Practice Centers in Fairlawn, recently switched to electronic prescribing for many of his patients.

”It’s just much easier,” he said. ”I can click and prescribe much faster than I could ever hand-write or print or fax a prescription.”

Dom Dera said he also likes the fact that electronic prescribing eliminates the risk of errors from misreading handwriting or improperly transcribing an order.

Still, electronic prescriptions aren’t for everyone.

At least for now, federal law forbids doctors from prescribing controlled substances electronically.

And some patients who like to shop around for their medications still prefer to take a paper prescription with them, Dom Dera said.

Medical Mutual’s pilot program started in March and continues through September.

Medical Mutual and Medco declined to release details about the financial incentives they are providing to physicians who reach targets for number of prescriptions ordered electronically.

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