(U.S. Senate: Washington, D.C.) -- The cost of poor quality in health care accounts for from 30 to 60 cents of every health care dollar. Senators John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Ensign (R-Nev.) along with a bipartisan group of legislators have introduced a bill that would expedite the adoption of electronic prescribing technology in every doctor’s office in America. Prescribing electronically instead of by-hand has been proven to save lives and cut costs on a massive scale.

As a result of prescription errors, American hospital patients are hit with 1.5 million injuries each year, according to the Institute of Medicine. Medication errors have killed at least 7,000 Americans in 2007. Of the more than three billion prescriptions written each year, doctors report nearly one billion require a follow-up between providers and pharmacies for clarification. The health-care system costs are in the billions.

Kerry’s bill would foster the adoption of e-prescribing by providing permanent Medicare funding for payment bonuses to physicians who acquire e-prescribing technology. In addition, for every Medicare prescription a doctor writes electronically, they will be paid an extra 1 percent bonus. Starting in 2011, Medicare physicians who are not electronically prescribing would face financial penalties.

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