In the next 12 to 36 months, electronic health records (EHRs) will become one of the many examples illustrating the strong interconnectedness of clinical issues – administration – and marketing. Now, CMS, state medical boards, and medical specialty boards are all working together to encourage doctors to start sending all their orders electronically and to start tracking their patient care electronically. Because these systems actually are more efficient when implemented correctly, more and more doctors will begin to prefer EHRs over paper systems. The home health agencies and physical therapy practices that can best interact with the doctors’ EHR systems will have a marketing advantage over those businesses that adopt this technology late.
On July 13, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final rules that will govern EHR rollouts and incentive payments for the next five years. The final rules are deemed less onerous than the previous proposed rules that raised many red flags with various associations and boards, and they are likely to win some favor from physicians who have been resistant in the past. Clinicians may begin their 90-day “meaningful use” certification process in less than four months. CMS incentive payments for using EHRs can reach up to $64,000, and these payments will begin in May 2011. For more information on the CMS incentive programs and the extent to which they will require doctors to use EHRs, visit:
www.CMS.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms
In addition to the strong incentives provided by CMS, it seems that the state boards of health and specialty boards may soon join the push to get clinicians using electronic health records. On August 5, the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) announced that it would incorporate into the Maintenance of Certification program measures designed to promote meaningful use of EHR. The ABMS guides 25 member specialty boards such as the American Board of Family Medicine and the American Board of Internal Medicine. Much of what the ABMS proposes is integrating their Maintenance of Certification systems with EHRs to create a more streamlined reporting process and streamlined data flow for clinicians.
Also on August 5, the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), which guides policy on state licensure, announced that EHRs will play a role in a clinician’s demonstration of ongoing clinical competence. Dr. Chaundry, FSMB president, expressed a long-term goal of clinicians being able to use their EHRs to simultaneously generate clinical data that satisfies the demands of CMS, specialty boards, and state medical boards.
