CALIFORNIA’S ELECTRONIC PRESCRIBING MANDATE Are you ready for California’s electronic prescribing mandate? Beginning on January 1, 2022 – less than three months from today – almost all prescriptions written in California must be transmitted electronically. Physicians who have not yet implemented electronic prescribing in their practices should begin the process now. The electronic prescribing mandate was contained in a law passed by the California State Legislature in 2018. The bill (AB 2789) had a three-year delayed implementation to allow physicians and other prescribers the opportunity to select and implement an electronic prescribing platform. But the delay ends at the end of this year. The law is partially based on the Medicare electronic prescribing for controlled substances (EPCS) requirement, which is also set to take effect on January 1st. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has proposed in the 2022 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule to delay
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implementation of the EPCS requirement for an additional year, to January 1, 2023, but that does not have any direct effect on the state requirement. Much of the language of the requirement was copied straight from the federal regulations. Unlike the Medicare requirement, however, the state mandate applies to almost all prescriptions, not just those for controlled substances. In that respect, the state mandate is much broader than the Medicare one and will affect many more physicians. The California Medical Association (CMA) opposed AB 2789 when it was being debated in the legislature and offered the author possible amendments that would have created some accommodations in the law. But the proposed amendments were rejected, as the Legislature saw AB 2789 as just an extension of the Medicare requirement. Understanding the Electronic Prescribing Mandate >>
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