1.  Social Security's new Retirement Estimator rated the federal government's best online service.  In the latest ratings of the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index for Federal Websites, the Social Security Administration's new online Retirement Estimator ranked as the best in government. 

It is available at www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator and gives the public the opportunity to run accurate, personalized scenarios for Social Security retirement benefits in a user-friendly way.

2.  Medicare to implement new electronic prescribing incentive program for doctors.  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a new initiative to encourage physicians to trade in their prescription pads for e-prescribing of medicines.

Eligible professionals who adopt electronic prescribing systems to transmit prescriptions to pharmacies may earn an incentive payment of 2.0% of their total Medicare allowed charges during 2009.  This incentive is in addition to other incentive payments from Medicare, which could boost their pay by up to a 5.1%.

"E-prescribing can greatly reduce the number of medication errors that jeopardize the health and safety of Medicare patients and waste precious health care dollars treating conditions that never should have happened," said Kerry Weems, Acting Administrator of CMS, citing statistics from the Institute of Medicine that more than 1.5 million Americans are injured every year by drug errors. 

The Medicare Fact Sheet on the Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program is available online at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/apps/media/press/factsheet.asp?Counter=3331&intNumPerPage=10&checkDate=&checkKey=&srchType=1&numDays=3500&srchOpt=0&srchData=&keywordType=All&chkNewsType=6&intPage=&showAll=&pYear=&year=&desc=&cboOrder=date

3.  Medicare adopts changes to link quality of outpatient care to payment of hospitals.  CMS announced plans to implement Value Based Purchasing initiatives across the range of beneficiaries' care and to transform Medicare from a passive payer to a prudent purchaser of health care.

"The direct impact of the new quality initiatives will be felt by the beneficiaries Medicare serves.  We are pointing the way to better, safer, and more efficient care for all patients," said Acting Administrator Kerry Weems.  "We look for ways to make sure beneficiaries who come in for treatment of one complaint don't leave with two as a result of adverse events during their outpatient visits."

The new rule emphasizes that an urgent and compelling rationale exists for CMS to implement a policy that would not pay hospitals for care related to illness or injuries acquired by the patient during a hospital outpatient encounter. It will require that annual payments be reduced by 2% for certain hospitals that do not meet quality reporting requirements. 

The rule establishes 11 quality measures that must be met. 

For more information on the changes, a fact sheet is available online at http://www.cms.hhs.gov/apps/media/press/factsheet.asp?Counter=3335&intNumPerPage=10&checkDate=&checkKey=&srchType=1&numDays=3500&srchOpt=0&srchData=&keywordType=All&chkNewsType=6&intPage=&showAll=&pYear=&year=&desc=&cboOrder=date