Physicians scoff at rules requiring them to use electronic records and now they must pay the penalty.
Melinda Beck reported in the Wall Street Journal 12/18/14 “Medicare to Cut Payments to Some Doctors, Hospitals”. Of the 893,851 physicians in the US, Ms. Beck reports 257,000 will be fined 1% of their Medicare fees for failure to adequately use an electronic medical record.
For example, the technically challenged doctors have failed to use electronic prescriptions, favoring instead marginally-legible hand-written prescriptions. And, they undoubtedly harmed patients by not taking advantage of allergy and interaction checks that are part of electronic prescribing.
AMA president-elect Steven J. Stack is reported as saying he was “appalled” by the government action. Every physician, obviously excluding Mr. Stack, was informed 5 years ago that fines would be imposed in 2014 by Medicare if physicians that bill Medicare fail to use electronic records in a meaningful way.
Why would a rational physician choose not to use an electronic record…?
- Because North Korea might hack the system
- Because the government told them to use an EMR (they give orders, not take them)
- Because they will be retiring soon and won’t need to learn about computers (the real reason)
- Because they will need to pay for a system to help patients
- Because young physicians want the systems, older physicians say no to all this newfangled stuff.
- Because a an electronic record might be used in court against them.
There you have it — a detailed explanation. Appalling, don’t you agree?
