January 31, 2013 Deadline Set to File for 2013 Medicare ePrescribing Hardship December 14, 2012 e prescribing, News eRx hardship exemptions, Medicare ePrescribing, medicare eRx, Medicare ePrescribing hardship 0 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. Comments are closed.
