MEDICARE PART D E-PRESCRIBING STANDARDS: EARLY ASSESSMENT SHOWS PARTIAL CONNECTIVITY

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The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 established the Medicare Part D e-prescribing program, which stipulates that plan sponsors must implement e-prescribing standards specified by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (the Secretary).

Between August and September 2008, GAO surveyed all Part D plan sponsors for plan year 2008 to determine the extent of their implementation of the standards. GAO received responses from 262 plan sponsors for a 94-percent response rate.

FINDINGS
Nearly 80 percent of plan sponsors reported at least partial plan-to-prescriber connectivity but few reported complete connectivity. Seventy-seven percent of plan sponsors responding to our survey reported either partial or complete implementation of the plan-to-prescriber standards. Sixty-nine percent of plan sponsors reported partial plan-to-prescriber connectivity. In contrast, only 8 percent of plan sponsors reported complete connectivity. Additionally, 16 percent of plan sponsors reported no plans to achieve plan-to-prescriber connectivity. The remaining plan sponsors did not provide information on plan-to-prescriber connectivity.
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