The US government offers substantial financial incentives to physicians for the use of electronic records to help evaluate care provided (up to $ 44,000 and $ 63,750 per individual physician, with Medicare and Medicaid, respectively, the government's insurance policies for the elderly and frail, and the poor, respectively). Yet a new study reveals that only 1 in 10 physicians with an electronic health record system met the government's "significant employment" requirements by early 2012. "The ultimate goal," he explains Catherine DesRoches, of Mathematica Policy Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and lead author of the study «is the widespread adoption of the system, because it results in broad interoperability. In this way, a large number of doctors share data using similar systems, and this results in a better quality of care». The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) oversee the incentive program. But to receive payment, doctors must meet 19 out of 24 "meaningful use" goals, including monitoring a patient's medications and allergies, sending reminders, sharing lab test results, and writing a patient office visit report. "We're making a huge public investment in healthcare in the adoption of the electronic health record," says DesRoches, "and we want to make sure that investment pays off in the benefit of patients." For this reason, questionnaires were sent to around 3,000 general practitioners and specialists for 6 months throughout the USA. Approximately 44% of the 1,820 responding physicians had an electronic record system in place, but only 10% met the first level of criteria, related to the ability to encode a patient's health information, monitor key conditions, and share information for the purpose of coordinating medications and other aspects of treatment. Yet, in April, more than 295,000 clinicians received a global sum of 14.3 billion dollars in incentive payments, according to the CMS.
06/06/2013 – DoctorNews33
