That said, I am highly opposed to mandatory government requirements for this. My GP says that there are tens of thousands of government mandated symptom codes that must be included in the report. He, of course, has not memorized all of these. His staff now must include an entry clerk to enter these codes. Thus my record does not include what my doctor SAYS I have, it's what this clerk THINKS my doctor said. In addition, the charges must now include the cost of paying this clerk. Unelected bureaucrats in Washington DC can never improve my life in Texas.
There are criminal penalties if the doctor should click the wrong box. This will doubtless skew what he puts in towards being useless but not criminal. Why should a doctor face fines or jail for clicking what he believes is correct at the time but turns out not to be correct. (Or, any of the other possibilities that a desk bound bureaucrat can think up as a violation.)
The codes have been there for years and coders have been part of it for at least 15 years. The number of codes has blossomed into ridiculousness but the coders have been there. both for diagnosis and for procedure.
>>That said, I am highly opposed to mandatory government requirements for this. My GP says that there are tens of thousands of government mandated symptom codes that must be included in the report. He, of course, has not memorized all of these. His staff now must include an entry clerk to enter these codes. Thus my record does not include what my doctor SAYS I have, it’s what this clerk THINKS my doctor said. In addition, the charges must now include the cost of paying this clerk. Unelected bureaucrats in Washington DC can never improve my life in Texas.
This “clerk” is actually a trained Medical Coder. It is a profession like any other that requires education, certification, and regular retraining. That job and those codes came about because of insurance fraud and demands for standardization of medical records.