Health IT Money May Not Work
This is from a story from the Associated Press:
Billions of stimulus dollars meant to spur doctors to switch to electronic record-keeping may not be enough to do the job, [according to a new study].
Using government cost estimates, researchers found that it would cost about $124,000 for a single doctor or small practice to upgrade to electronic health records over a five year period…….. But the total incentive payments a doctor could get over that time period only add up to $44,000.
In 2015, penalties start to kick in for doctors who haven't switched to electronic record-keeping. But in one scenario mapped by Avalere, the starting penalty would be $5,100 a year – far less than how much it would cost to install and maintain an electronic health system.
Se my comment above. I second it here.
Looks like we are going to have a pay-or-play EMR choice for docs, just like the pay-or-play health insurance choice for employers.
In both cases the result is likely to be the same: People will pay the fine, because it’s the cheapest alternative.
Google+ certainly sunods interesting, I’d like to give it a try if you don’t mind. 😉 I’ve always felt quite limited by Facebook’s features, and wind up not sharing something more often than not because it wouldn’t make sense to most of the people who would see it.