NY Times: Medical Offices and Hospitals That Use Electronic Medical Records To Receive Bonuses
According to a December 30, 2009 article in the NY Times, entitled “Bonus Planned for Digital Medical Records”, Medicare officials have outlined a plan to reward medical offices and hospitals that maintain systems of electronic medical records. Under the proposed stimulus, billions of dollars will be handed out across the country to healthcare providers that keep updated digital medical records of their patients. The announcement is just a proposal, however, and the plan does not expect to be completed until the spring.
The article features a quote from David Blumenthal, the national coordinator for health information technology, who says that “Widespread adoptions of electronic health records holds great promise for improving health care quality, efficiency, and patient safety”.
The proposed plan will provide bonus payments to health care professionals who use electronic medical records for at least 80 percent of their medical instructions. These incentives will facilitate America’s full transfer to electronic medical records, which President Obama has promised by 2014. According to Obama administration officials, using digital health records will reduce costly medical errors and duplicate testing.
The national implementation of electronic medical records will also result with a high demand for healthcare technology professionals, such as medical billing and coding specialists, who can help medical offices and hospitals maintain these systems of electronic medical records.
