Electronic Health Records - Stimulus Package Conditions

The biggest barrier to electronic health records has been price, however, the US government has tried to overcome this barrier by introducing an ehr stimulus package. The package lays down certain conditions on usability and implementation time. If we look into the conditions carefully, the major emphasis is on adopting the electronic health records system by physicians as early as possible.

The stimulus package states that anyone who treats Medicare patients without an EHR by 2015 will see reimbursements decrease by 1% that year. The pay cut grows to 2% in 2016 and 3% in 2017 and every year afterwards. . If electronic health records adoption fails to hit the 75% mark by 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) can boost the penalty to 4% that year and a maximum 5% in 2019 and beyond.

In order to avail the unmatched benefits of electronic health records system and government incentive program, the physicians has to be determined as regards the implementation of the system as early as possible.