Medicare Billing Rises at Hospitals With Electronic Records

The New York Times published an article: "Medicare Billing Rises at Hospitals With Electronic Records". The article discussed many key points on the impact of Electronic Health Records (or EHRs). The following are some points from the article:

• EHRs may be contributing to billions of dollars in higher costs for Medicare, private insurers & patients making it easier for the physicians to bill more for their services.
• In 2010, hospitals received $1 billion more in Medicare reimbursements than 5 years prior.
• For instance one hospital's reimbursements rose 43% in 2009, the same year they began their EHR.
• Another hospital discussed in the article had an increase in their paid claims by 82%.
• Because of the higher coding, this has prompted the attention of federal & state regulators as well as private insurers - they state that coding of E/M Services is vulnerable to fraud and abuse.
• One individual stated that  EHRs "can improve the quality of care, save lives and save money"

Some negatives of Electronic Health Records - EHRs are as follows:

• Automatically generated patient history
• Cut-and-paste examination findings from multiple patients - called "cloning"
• Boxes that allow doctors to review patients symptoms without a full exam being done.
• One individual was quoted stating: (the use of electronic records): "makes it faster and easier to fraudulent".

To download the full article, please click the following link: "Medicare Billing Rises at Hospitals With Electronic Records"

For additional billing, coding, and reimbursement resources, please click the following link: Medical Reimbursement, Inc. Resources Page