EMR Software Blog (EHR Software)

Medicare will use both carrot and stick approach to reward EMR\EHR adoption, and to penalize non-adoption.

Incentives include up to $64,000 + for early adopters of EHR Software.  Penalties estimate up to 3-5% of medicare billings.

Four critical aspects of the bill include:
1- Elegibile Professional; (under medicare provisions of the bill, an elegibile professional is a doctor of medicine or ostepoathy; dentists; podiatrists; optometrists; chiropractors).
2- Not be hospital based;
3- Demonstrate “Meaningful Use” of an EHR software.  To be left up to discretion of HHS Secretary, but expected to include e-prescribing, interoperability, clinical reporting,
4- Certified EHR program. - yet to be determined by HHS Secretary, but exptected to include CCHIT certification.

Incentives will be allowed thru two provisions:
1-Medicare incentives
2-Medicaid incentives
But NOT BOTH.  No incentives after 2016.  Up to 10% additional reimbursements for physicians in “physician shortage areas”.

Physicians who demonstrate “meaningful use” in first two years receive a $3,000 bonus.

To learn more about Medisoft Clinical EHR Software Click Here.

Legal Disclaimer - this post represents our own interpretation and should verified with your legal and accounting staff or consultants.

Have you head the hub bub in the blog community just recently about the PHR controversy?  Seems like HIMM’s CEO publicly questioned PHR’s (Public Health Records) as lacking in trust from the medical community.  Another blog decried the comment “ …{Mr Leiber from HIMSS} should provide full disclosure that HIMSS receives a boat-load of money from the EMR vendors that have a lot to loose should records begin migrating beyond the four walls of a hospital. First, it will force the issue of interoperability, something EMR vendors are loathed to adopt for like any other industry, interoperability gives the buyer choices and easier paths for migrating from one system to another. Also, these vendors are beginning to offer their own tethered-PHR, which is simply a consumer-centric EMR portal to their records. A PHR that resides outside of the EMR limits their market opportunity.

It appears that Leiber and the EMR companies fear that Google and Microsoft will launch a fully-featured EMR/PHR combo that will deliver both value and functionality. Microsoft already has an EMR product in the market.  Both of these companies already have released or announced plans for providing a public portal for Personal Health Records.

Where does this put the Physician?  Smack dab in the middle of the controversy if you ask me, but then, thats where they should be, they should not capitulate and let business or government dictate the outcome of this controversy.