Regulatory Requirements Drive Dissatisfaction

The title of this piece is called “Regulatory Requirements Drive Dissatisfaction With EHR” and the first thing I thought to myself was “really”?  Isn’t that obvious by now?  Doesn’t everyone know this?  It’s like stating that “water found to be wet” or “pregnant women more likely to give birth than non pregnant women”. Regulatory requirements = bureaucratic drag which burns us out.  End of story.

This article is actually about the May 8th piece in the Annals of Internal Medicine where “N. Lance Downing, M.D., from the Stanford University School of Medicine in California, and colleagues discuss problems with EHR systems”.   Goody for them.  Here is a summary:

  • The authors note that physicians abroad who have adopted the same vendor software as that used in the United States were more likely to report satisfaction with EHR use and cite it as a tool that improved efficiency.
  • The EHR tends to be much briefer in other countries, containing only essential clinical information and omitting much of the compliance and reimbursement documentation.
  • Clinical notes are nearly four times longer in the United States than in other countries, across the same EHR.
  • Physicians are required to document an increasing amount of low-value administrative data; these documentation requirements are the remnant of the fee-for-service system.
  • However, meaningful-use incentives have created more requirements for low-value documentation, and value-based models have their own documentation requirements.
  • Simplifying the regulations around documentation and billing would likely benefit the health care system and patients.

Are you kidding me?  These “geniuses” just repeat what we doctors have been saying for years! But it’s not about simplifying regulations. It’s about getting rid of the middlemen who are judging us via the EMRs; that being insurers and the government.  Get them out of healthcare and let us do our job.  Boop.

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