Medical Economics, a magazine doctors actually read, probably just set back the cause of getting EMRs into small practices about 10 years with this article called: Why EHRs falter (Hat-tip to KevinMD)

My take is that this needs to be an ASP business wrapped into the billing service. I think that it’s nuts for a small practice to take on the responsibility of integrating an EMR with their billing system, and even crazier for them to buy and manage software and hardware. They’re already paying somewhere between 6% and 12% of revenue for billing services, and they should be making their billing services provide them with an ASP based EMR. And quite a few out there will do that.

And think about this. My friend who is a physical therapist at Kaiser tells me that she is going to halve the number of patients she sees for six weeks and have a full-time consultant helping her individually when she gets put on the HealthConnect/Epic system.  And that’s probably the right approach. How many small practices can genuinely take that time or make that investment?

(If you’re not a Noel Coward fan and don’t understand the title reference, look here)