The physicians, who have already spent millions of dollars to set up electronic health record systems, could now face penalties because of a timing glitch in federal rules.
Politico: CMS Glitch Could Cost Doctors Millions
Physicians who just spent hundreds of millions of dollars to install new electronic health record systems will face millions in federal penalties due to a technical glitch that affects their compliance with a federal program, vendors and doctors say. “It’s beyond understanding why we’d be penalized after making such an investment,†said Dr. Jonathan Lowry, an eye specialist and surgeon at Morganton Eye Physicians in western North Carolina. “This was not our fault.†The Catch-22 stems from the shifting rules that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has established in a $30 billion program intended to incentivize physicians and hospitals to switch from paper to electronic health records (Allen, 9/18).
Also, in other health IT headlines –
Reuters: Electronic Health Record Providers Integrating With Apple’s Mobile Health Service
Cerner Corp and Athenahealth Inc, two leading U.S. electronic health record providers, said on Thursday they are working with Apple Inc to develop applications that leverage Apple’s mobile health service HealthKit. Cerner and Athenahealth representatives said they are building integrations with HealthKit and working with Apple. Previously, Apple announced a partnership with rival electronic health record company Epic Systems. Apple did not respond to a request for comment. The goal is to help doctors monitor patients with chronic conditions from home and identify health risks. HealthKit gathers data from various applications and devices, including blood pressure cuffs, accelerometers and glucose measurement systems, and makes it easier for doctors to view it all in one place. Across the United States, hospitals are rolling out pilots using HealthKit to improve [preventive] care, and potentially cut costs (9/18).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.