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Race to electronic health records may come with a price

By Fred Schulte

Amid all the enthusiasm over increasing the use of information technology in health, politicians and policy makers paid little attention to the implications of a gold rush sparked when billions of taxpayers’ dollars suddenly came up for grabs. Hundreds of medical technology companies scrambled to sell digital systems — often by promising doctors and hospitals they could boost revenues by billing higher rates to Medicare and other health insurers.

The fallout from those early decisions could be coming back to haunt taxpayers, according to a three-part investigative series from the Center for Public Integrity. The series documented that thousands of medical professionals steadily billed Medicare for more complex and costly health care over the past decade — adding $11 billion or more to their fees — despite little evidence elderly patients required more treatment.

In this essay, reporter Fred Schulte explains how the project came about, how the Center did its reporting and provides plenty of background on medical coding, Medicare billing and the potential fallout as health care providers install and use electronic systems.

Assessment

Full link: Race to electronic health records may come with a price

Publisher’s Note: Fred Schulte is a four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, most recently in 2007 for a series on Baltimore’s arcane ground rent system. Schulte’s other projects exposed excessive heart surgery death rates in veterans’ hospitals, substandard care by health insurance plans treating low-income people and the hidden dangers of cosmetic surgery in medical offices. He spent much of his career at The Baltimore Sun in Maryland, where I first noted his work, and then the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Schulte has received the George Polk Award, two Investigative Reporters and Editors awards, three Gerald Loeb Awards for business writing and two Worth Bingham Prizes for investigative reporting. The University of Virginia graduate is the author of Fleeced!, an exposé of telemarketing scams. Schulte can be reached at fschulte@publicintegrity.org or 202-481-1210.

Conclusion

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Filed under: Information Technology | Tagged: EHRs, EMRs, Fred Schulte, HIT | 15 Comments »