[spintreebob]

See also http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20180217/NEWS/180219921 ONC and CMS seek to understand clinician tech burden

"Time to focus on administrative simplification" Two ways to do that: 1) Remove ACA and other government regulations. Let patients, insurers, medical professionals figure it out in the market place. 2) Impost one-size-fits-all from the central bureaucrats to everyone. Once-size-fits-all is certainly a simplification.

[Chickensoup]

EHR has nothing to do with with saving costs and everything to do with tracking

[rktman]

🙀. WUT! No way! 😹🍿🍻🇺🇸

[nickcarraway]

I thought they were called EMRs now?

[chrisser]

As someone who manages an EHR, I suspect this is true.

However, the purpose of an EHR is not to bring efficiency, accuracy, or improve patient care.

The purpose of an EHR is to generate the reports required for compliance with the regulatory requirements of multiple government agencies and insurance companies.

[Vermont Lt]

I don’t disagree with the findings. I will say that in my life I have found ready access to labs, MRI and CT Scans and other items to be a godsend. They save time and have spared a couple of misdiagnoses.

Of course, I’d you are not tied into the system, it sucks. A lot.

[Jim Noble]

This is not PRINCIPALLY about meeting regulations.

It’s principally about collecting more money for the same service. Which is easy to do with a 2nd or third-generation EHR.

[stig]

Of course EHRs don't lower administrative burden. They increase because they record everything. That means prior to the EHR there was a lot of stuff going pro bono because it wasn't worth the time to record and track it. Now everything is there and they can create computer programs to review the chart and suggest additions to the record. Then someone has to go through this complexity and determine which stuff to add to the bill.

This is the same as word processors didn't speed the time to delivering a final document. It increased the number of revisions and corrections that take place.

[mewzilla]

My docs have had to hire medical scribes to do their hunting and pecking for them. How is hiring another layer of admin supposed to lower costs??

[Chode]

The estimated total time to process a bill for the least expensive type of encounter, a primary-care visit, was 13 minutes, at a cost of $20.49. The average time for the most expensive type of visit, an inpatient surgical procedure, was 100 minutes, at a cost of $215.10.

ahem... BULLSH!T!!!

[HamiltonJay]

DUH.

Why would anyone think EHR systems which primary purpose was to generate a bill, And yes folks that’s what their primary purpose was, was going to reduce billings???

It’s purpose was to make sure you got billed as much as possible for every little thing.

Everything else they do were added assecondary functions to support that goal.