Tennessee’s Medicaid program and the state’s largest public/private health information exchange have launched an e-prescribing pilot program geared toward physicians who practice in rural areas.
The Bureau of TennCare and Shared Health’s HIE launched the pilot program in early March. Fifty rural physician practices in 13 counties are participating in the e-prescribing initiative. The chosen practices lacked access to or the resources to deploy e-prescription technology.
The pilot was funded by a "Medicaid Transformation Grant" from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The grant program is designed to introduce innovative technologies into state Medicaid processing systems.
The pilot program will use Cerner’s e-prescribing software, said Rick Krohn, Shared Health’s marketing director. Physicians were given the option of using a tablet PC or a 17-inch LCD monitor with an existing computer. Krohn said 49 of the 50 participating physicians opted for the tablet PC.
The program also helps physicians connect to the Internet or upgrade an existing connection to broadband, Krohn added.
Physicians receive the equipment, training and support for free. They also gain access to a medication database, prescription histories, notification of TennCare’s and other payers’ formularies, and alerts about potential adverse drug interactions, among other features, according to Shared Health.
After the pilot program ends June 30, TennCare and Shared Health will examine physicians’ utilization patterns to determine which program features are most useful to rural practitioners.
The organizations will consider factors such as prescribing patterns before and after implementation, the percent of prescriptions that underwent prior authorization, and trends in the use of generic drugs.
Government Health IT presents Rick Friedman, director of the division of state systems for the Center for Medicaid and State Operations with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in this recent eSeminar regarding how the federal Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services is partnering with state Medicaid and health and human services officials to bring Medicaid into the digital age. Paul McCloskey, Government Health IT editor, moderates.
