Electronic medical records requirements could be unfair to Borderland health care providers
Updated: Sunday, January 11, 2015 | Stacey Welsh
EL PASO, Texas — Federal law requires medical records to be electronic, and a local clinic said that could be unfair to Borderland doctors.
President Obama first signed the requirements into law in 2009 with the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act. As of Jan. 1, 2015, health care providers could miss out on Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement if they don’t comply with the law.
“There’s always a little bit of leeway, but there is a motivation to get this done,” family nurse practitioner Michael Jacobs said.
Jacobs said the clinic where he works, Summit Urgent Care, started using electronic medical records when the clinic first opened.
He said having electronic records could make medical billing and communication between health care providers easier.
“You want your doctor, a doctor at the hospital, a surgeon and a family doctor to be able to communicate your needs,” Jacobs said.
Since the measure was signed into law, practices have had the option to apply for government funding to help cover costs of converting records.
Jacobs said practices could get a one percent cut to Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement for the first month they don’t comply with the law, and the cuts could go up from there.
While the law applies to Medicare and Medicaid patients, Jacobs said if some records are required to be computer based, it makes sense for health care providers to switch all records over.
Another part of the law requires patients to have access to their medical records online.
“That’s the other unfair part of the law. Some people don’t have Internet access in the border area, and due to our socioeconomic poverty, our reimbursement isn’t always that good here on the border,” Jacobs said.
While Jacobs said the law is expected to be a good thing in the long-run, identity theft is a concern with records online.
Access to records at home could also raise health concerns with patients if, for example, they don’t know how to read charts or X-rays on their own.
“The bad thing is Google and all the Internet services are no replacement for a well-trained physician,” Jacobs said.
Jacobs also said he expects practices that have not switched to electronic medical records will try to do so by the end of this month.
