By Max Green
More than half of the physicians who bill Medicare in the U.S. are currently being penalized 1 percent of their 2015 payments as a result of the meaningful use program, according to Steven J. Stack, MD, president of the American Medical Association.
“Imagine, in a world where a 2-year-old can operate an iPhone, you have graduate-educated physicians brought to their knees by electronic health records,” Dr. Stack told WBUR in Boston. “When you have more than a quarter million physicians being penalized by the government, by a single program, I think that most people will understand the math. It’s not the 250,000-plus physicians that are the problem, it’s most likely the single program they’re being punished by.”
Though Dr. Stack may be the most vocal physician airing his grievances about EHR functionality and performance in the clinical care setting, he is far from the only one with gripes. One component of the AMA’s Break the Red Tape town hall events, which aim to foster an open discussion of physician critiques on EHR technology, is the equivalent of an open-mic slam for clinicians, featuring a revolving door of medical professionals stepping up to share their frustrations and horror stories with this technology.
