Posted on 10/07/2015 8:42:28 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Obama administration is moving ahead with controversial new rules that require doctors to switch to electronic health records or face fees, resisting calls from both parties to delay implementation.
Federal health officials said the final rules released Tuesday will make “significant changes" in the "meaningful use" electronic health records program, such as lowering the number of standards each provider must meet and allowing providers to apply for hardship exemptions.
But the administration will not delay what it calls "Stage 3" of the records program, a move that is already angering vocal Republicans like Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who have repeatedly called for a delay of a year or more. “The administration has a tin ear,” Alexander, the chairman of the Senate’s health committee, said in a statement Tuesday. “They’ve missed a golden opportunity to develop bipartisan support in Congress... Instead, they’ve rushed ahead with a rule against the advice of some of the nation’s leading medical institutions and physicians.”
The finalized rule does offer a 90-day period for additional comment, which would give some extra time for providers, said Dr. Patrick Conway, chief medical officer at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Conway told reporters Tuesday that it was too late to “separate the various rules” and that adjusting the timeline for one piece of the program would negatively impact the rest.
“It’s entirely likely that we would have penalized thousand of providers,” he said. “We’re getting to the same place with just a different administration method. If additional improvements are needed for stage 3, we can make those next year.”
The changes are intended to make it easier for providers to meet the tougher health IT standards, which were announced in April. Those standards drew fierce opposition from more than 100 lawmakers of both parties, who have urged the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to push back its timeline.
The government has put out several sets of rules, intended to help physicians and hospitals make the leap in stages.
It’s an attempt to move away from a paper-based system that depends on a doctor’s handwriting and paper copies of files – and one that could become a major part of Obama’s health legacy.
Groups like the American Academy of Family Physicians have said many of its providers’ issues with electronic health records are the result of the technology itself.
“We believe this is the fault of the vendors and their lack of accountability while reaping huge profits from the HITECH act,” the group’s president, Dr. Robert Wergin, wrote in a statement hours before the rules were announced.
“Vendors, not providers, must be held fiscally accountable for not yet achieving an appropriate level of interoperability.”
Nanny State PING!
Remember that database that Obama was supposed to be putting together on every American citizen?
Then there’s the very real danger of HC data breaches. This will essentially put an end to privacy of HC info. I have several friends in HC companies. Data security in the industry is a joke.
Everyone keeps records differently...and that's how it should be.
Government....just go away...
Your “government” wants to know everything about you so they can determine your check out time.
Is this the same system that ties into the Global Healthcare practices network?
Valerie and her cabal have NEVER given a damn about what is good for this nation. From the moment it seized power, the current group of executive branch occupants has worked actively against America.
The vendors are amongst Obama’s biggest donors.
Between this and ICD-10, my own doctor threw in the towel and is retiring at the end of next month.
Big Brother is watching.....
Newt was big on healthcare records too, when ACA was under consideration
Big government causing problems again. /shocking
ICD-10?
As a former vendor, I agree completely.
But be aware that vendors depend on standards being developed.
As someone who poured his heart and soul into this process, the government has a habit of imposing impossible to meet deadlines. It is clear to me the gvt struggles to understand the basics of standardized standards and systems.
I’m a little cloudy on the difference between a vendor and a provider.
If I took the words literally I would think that a vendor sells the product and the provider provides it but is reimbursed by someone else.
But something tells me that’s not right.
Just one serious look at the EPA tells you that the Government is a few cans short of a 6-pack.
They'd rather bleed industry than be realistic. Fines ensue...
I wish I could I have four more years then I’m out....
HC records are as safe as the OPM records were. The data WILL (and most likely already has) been breached and dumped. I have no doubt. They really don’t give a damn if it is.
ICD-10 is a real pain in the dupa. One of my doctor clients sent me an email and said he saw a photo on Facebook of a distinguished-looking gentleman with a caption which read: “I don’t always get sucked into a jet engine but when I do, I use ICD-10 code V97.33XD.
A very few companies are getting rich off of their software which is required in order to comply. You’re not going to find solo practitioners or small groups in the health field any more. They simply don’t make enough money to afford the support staff necessary to manage the paperwork.
This is as essential as Common Core’s database on every single child-— government knowing everything about your child, including attitude, belief and abilities. They already take DNA from every baby born in any hospital and put it in their database. But don’t worry—you can TRUST the government always.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/04/baby.dna.government/
I am against any digitalized health records.....NONE. There is no privacy in it ever. It is the total end of privacy and human dignity, and we all know why they want to put us into databases. This ability for complete totalitarian control of every single person on earth-—is here—if we all are digitalized—in their databank. It is Big Brother knowing exactly everything about us so they can eliminate us and isolate us very easily. Same thing if they can eliminate cash.
The government only wants billions of people to be exterminated-—off of their playground. And they also will eliminate any person who refuses to grovel to their desires, or be their slaves, or not allow their children to be their butt boys. They are Satanists, after all....the evil sodomites who were raping the Corey boys, the Fabians who were castrating little 3rd world boys, and bribing Justice Roberts to force the unconstitutional obamacare which forces databases.
We live in very evil, satanic times, and a devil is in the White House and sodomites control the SCOTUS.. We live in a Vice System-—Rule of Oligarchy——all of the above is UNCONSTITUTIONAL but the sheeple just go along with their enslavement. And we a “free” nation-—LOL—ya, right-—go report to your doctor, Mengele. You can “trust” your doctors who are “educated” in our Prussian system of mass indoctrination where Vice is Virtue-—and sodomizing others is now “Good”-—like with the Hitler Youth—: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFpcFScVKog
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