Emerging from EHR purgatory through value-based reimbursement

As an independent physician using an EHR system, do you find that you are spending more time on the computer than with your patients? EHR systems are theoretically designed to enable you to spend less time on charting and billing so you will have more face-to-face time with patients. However, a reimbursement structure that rewards quantity over quality may be challenging that EHR design theory.

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, Allan H. Goroll, MD, an internist at Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital, posits that the “underlying mode of physician payment” is the driving force toward “EHR purgatory.” Dr. Goroll goes on to explain that “delivery from EHR purgatory may require a fundamental change in the way we pay clinicians: moving from rewarding processes to rewarding outcomes.”

Value-based reimbursement shifts the focus back to the quality of patient care and shifts the EHR focus back to managing data on patient visits, lab results, and the patient’s healthcare plan. The EHR must also promote communication between patient and physician as well as between a patient’s multiple providers.

Elation’s Clinical First EHR enables independent physicians to spend their time focusing on patient care rather than on tedious and often repetitious data input. At Elation, we recognize that entering and re-entering information has remained a time-intensive and cumbersome part of adopting electronic health records. Elation reduces this need by prioritizing automation throughout the workflow.

Clinical First is a commitment to building a provider-centric Clinical EHR that exists at the nexus of the clinical workflow, supports the physician-patient relationship, and drives outstanding patient outcomes. Independent physicians should be able to spend more time engaging with their patients during visits and during follow-up communication and less time in EHR purgatory.

We understand that, as an independent physician, you are concerned about your patients’ care quality. You need to spend less time on the paperwork and on the computer and more time doing what you do best, providing value-based patient care.