The implementation of an electronic medical record is not an easy task for medical offices. The process can be expensive, sophisticated, and time consuming, especially for smaller medical offices with limited resources. According to a study in Health Affairs it costs about $44,000 per physician to install an electronic health records system, and that is not including ongoing maintenance costs.

President Obama’s federal stimulus will go a long way in helping smaller medical offices actualize electronic medical records. According to a study published in June 2008 by the New England Journal of Medicine, “Only 9% of medical practices with three or fewer physicians now use electronic medical records. By way of comparison, 50% of practices with more than 50 physicians have electronic medical records”. By 2014,  all medical offices in the United States will have shifted to an electronic medical record, and medical billing and coding professionals will be instrumental to the process.

Tags: billing and coding, billing and coding jobs, electronic medical records, EMR, federal stimulus package, healthcare, healthcare professionals, healthcare stimulus, healthcare technology, medical billing, medical billing and coding, medical coding, obama
This entry was posted on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 10:22 am and is filed under Medical Billing and Coding and Electronic Medical Records. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.