Today the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) in the Department of Health and Human Services released a report, here, that is decidedly critical of CMS and ONC oversight of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) subsidy program.
Over the last couple of years there have been growing criticisms of the Meaningful Use program and its disbursement of potentially $30 billion in ARRA funds. I have detailed many of these concerns, such as the overall effectiveness of electronic records, my doubts as to the robustness of the first two Stages of Meaningful Use requirements, the safety record of the technologies, their ability to actually save money, their real-world interoperability, and their general usability in the healthcare workflow, here.
Recently, additional questions have been raised that go to the very heart of the subsidy program. First, the Center for Public Integrity, here, and the New York Times, here, set off a firestorm with allegations of EHR use leading to extensive upcoding. This led to a scolding letter to the healthcare industry from Secretary Sebelius and the Attorney-General, here, and combative words back from some of the addressees, here.
Questions have also been raised about the apparent laxity of CMS in approving payment to providers claiming subsidy funds, leading to CMS announcing a hastily designed audit process, here.
Today’s OIG report elaborates on the same basic issue of lax payment safeguards. First, the report finds that CMS has not implemented strong pre-payment safeguards (either by verifying self-reported data or requiring supporting documentation). Second, it suggests that CMS’s proposed post-payment audit program is limited and potentially flawed. Fortunately, CMS/ONC are in broad agreement with the OIG that the EHR technology itself must step up and meaningfully test for meaningful use. In the meantime increased Congressional scrutiny seems a less elegant but likely surrogate.
Nicolas Terry is the Hall Render Professor of Law at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law. He blogs at Harvard Law’s Bill of Health where this post was originally published.
If the EHR, CPOE, and CDS devices were any good, they would not have to bribe the doctors to purchase them, let alone with the guise of unproven and untested meaningful use.
This is a sham on the citizenry of the country. The perpetrators of the fraud are the vendors.
Does anyone know how much HIM$$ and the vendors paid to the Congress over the past decade?
3rd degree hyperbole.
What specifically in Dr. Harrison’s post qualifies as hyperbole? (I haven’t been able to find a definition of 3rd degree hyperbole)
Curly has hit the nail on the head.
Imagine this press release:
“Today, Apple announced a new product called the EHR. Initially Apple expects to have to pay users to buy the product. These initial payments will be transitioned to penalties for not buying/using the product. Apple expects this product to be extremely sucessful, NOT because it is well designed or useful, but because they have coercive powers over the buyers.”