OIG Issues EHR Fraud Survey

A growing criticism of EHRs is the ability for providers to cut and paste notes from one patient's records to the next in an effort to save time. One question in the OIG survey asks is "Does the hospital have a policy regarding the use of the copy/paste feature in EHR technology?"

Although the OIG work plan has been posted on its Web site for some time, providers noted the "interesting" timing of the survey letters, coming less than a month before the presidential election.

"I'm a little riled up right now," says Pamela McNutt, vice chair of the policy steering committee of the College of Healthcare Information Executives (CHIME), who shared her concerns in a session on Meaningful Use at CHIME's Fall CIO Forum last week in Palm Springs, Calif.

The survey is "all over the place, from HIPAA privacy and security questions to coding practices, copy and paste functions and detailed questions on audit log functionality," McNutt says. 

Asked about the timing of the survey, an OIG spokesman referred to the agency's work plan.