Physicians facing down a 2015 federal deadline for upgrading to electronic health record systems are finding that many insurers are eager to help with technology and financing.
That's how as it should be, according to David Blumenthal, MD, MP, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, "The CMS and ONC regulations establish only the parameters of the federal program. The public and private sectors can and must collaborate in furthering the goal of creating a 21st century electronic health information system in the United States," he said Thursday at a forum titled "Accelerating Electronic Health Records Adoption and Meaningful Use."
Judging by the latest batch of earnings reports, payers are flush and investing in EMRs is solid bet, backed by federal greenbacks due to physicians who meet meaningful use requirements as part of health reform legislation.
Next year, for example, some hospitals in California and Georgia may be eligible to borrow funds from WellPoint. Its Q2 earnings announced last month beat Wall Street estimates.
On Tuesday, Humana announced that it would go a step further and subsidize the implementation cost of athenahealth's EHR service for eligible physicians. A statement from Humana says, "participating physicians could realize additional revenue of 20 percent beyond their current fee-for-service base collections from Humana."
UnitedHealthcare, too, has unveiled a program that will provide outcomes-based financial incentives to physicians who have successfully adopted EHR systems that meet meaningful use criteria.
That's great news for hospitals and physicians struggling to make ends meet. But what are the downsides?
One school of though posits that taking money from payers for EHRs is a conflict of interest, since payers themselves have a keen interest in digging into patient data for the purpose of risk adjustment. i.e., analyzing it in order to forecast future wellness and calculate appropriate pricing.
Data is more likely to be analyzed in the aggregate, and in fact, HIPAA may protect individual patient records. What about questions of medical liability? Will insurer-subsidized EHRs make payers accountable for patient care or outcomes? Could payers be liable for medical decisions based on faulty software? It's doubtful.
The takeaway is that payers and providers both stand to gain from these EHR financing deals. The law has passed, and there's no escaping EHRs. Providers should direct their attention toward the many financing options emerging and start forming strategies now to put themselves into compliance by the deadline.