EHR SNAFU
In our analysis of a 2011 nationally representative survey of office-based physicians, we found that 91 percent of physicians were eligible for Medicare or Medicaid meaningful-use incentives. About half of all physicians intended to apply. However, only 11 percent both intended to apply for the incentives and had electronic health record systems with the capabilities to support even two-thirds of the stage 1 core objectives required for meaningful use.
Full Health Affairs study on federal incentive programs.
Surprise. It doesn’t work.
This financial incentive fails because the global financial incentives provided by a market are absent.
SNAFU isn’t the right word. This is a FAILURE.
How about DISASTER?
This sounds like a bureaucratic system consisting of more carrot than stick. Yet, I cannot blame doctors. Federal bureaucrats believe they can create incentives from the top down for doctors to install systems that are cumbersome, and offer little advantage to physicians’ practices.